BBB's Blog
If you've ever wondered what it's like to run a magazine or how crazy my personal life is, be sure to read the behind-the-scenes peek at the daily trials and tribulations of running True West. Culled straight from my Franklin Daytimer, it contains actual journal entries, laid out raw and uncensored. Some of it is enlightening. Much of it is embarrassing, but all of it is painfully true.
In addition to this current journal, my early journal entries show the rocky road and money lost in the True West Business Timeline.
Bob's biography - The Unvarnished Truth
November 20, 2009
All of us who write books about Billy the Kid hope for the three Rs: that we will be respected, get rich from book sales and be fondly remembered for our efforts to get to the truth about Billy. Of course there have been over 1,000 books written about the Kid and as I like to brag, I didn't write all of them. Nope, not even half. I'm not exactly sure of the actual total, but let's just say I'm reading two new Billy books even as you read this.
But, I digress.
In our juvenile fantasies we can imagine people sitting around 100 years from now, fantasizing what it was like to be on the trail with the legendary writers (that would be me) and researchers who were on the trail of the legendary outlaw. What role will we have in the future stories? Will we be compared to Phil Rasch? Walter Noble Burns? William Morrison? Ash Upson? Jerry Weddle? (Oh, please dear God, don't let it be Jerry Weddle!)
In short, we all long to be part of The Story. But, as I am fond of quoting, "History is a cruel trick played on the dead by the living." And, I have a strong hunch how we are going to be remembered has less to do with our efforts and more to do with the bizarre aspects of Kid Krazy. And by Kid Krazy, I mean the absolutely incredible way in which everyone associated with covering this legend goes off the deep end.
Case in point: an ex-Beverly Hills psychiatrist named Gail Cooper has written an expose titled Mega Hoax: The Strange Plot to Exhume Billy the Kid And Become President.
Tell Me Something I Don't Know
In Mega Hoax, Ms. Cooper describes Paul Hutton as "a parasitic cuckoo bird."
Tell me something I don't know.
She also claims that Hutton is a "shape shifter."
Tell me something I don't know.
She goes after me like this: "Doing the ricochet trick Bob Boze Bell comes on screen [History Channel's Investigating History: Billy the Kid by Bill Kurtis] to state snidely that: "Friends of Pat Garrett conducted what they called an autopsy. But there were no photographs." Then she mocks me for being a self-avowed cartoonist and not being an acredited historian.
Come on Gail, tell me something I don't know.
Continuing her harangue of everyone who appeared on the History Channel show, she says, "Since all hoaxers, except [Gov] Richardson and Robins, are in cowboy costumes, there appear innumerable droopy or stringy mustaches on talking-heads throughout—inadvertently leaving the impression for cognoscenti that Old West characters were all jive-talkers; and leaving the audience at large waiting for them to join in a final scene singing:
"Oh come along boys and listen to my tale. . .
Come a ti yi yippie yippie yay come a ti yi hippie yippie yippie yay."
Tell me something I don't know.
Often, author Cooper goes after Hutton (who is the arch villain of the entire piece) and makes a fool of herself. For example, she quotes Hutton as claiming the Kid was 12 when his mother died, then she corrects him by claiming the Kid's real age was "14 1/2". Really? Historians and researchers have never found a birth record for the Kid, can't agree on when, or even where he was born and you've got it down to fourteen and a half? Amazing.
Okay, so now you've told me something I didn't know. Sorry.
Here's the part with my "lioness" managing editor and Cooper's pitch to run her hoax story in True West: "Into that lions' den, I went with my hoax expose! The lioness to who I was assigned was Meghan Saar, who e-mailed me on January 31, 2006: 'All parties in this article should be given the opportunity to respond; the article feels very biased and skewered toward one direction, and I feel this may be because not all parties were asked to comment.' I withdrew the article the next day, citing their bias."
Meghan's quote says it all, for me and our position on the entire project. But there is one more quote worth citing. After she took her article back she went to the New York Times, among others. First, she gives me credit, "The Boze Bell fiasco, at least, dragged me out of my anonymity closet." But when she contacted the New York Times reporter who wrote the front page article announcing the dig, he said to her he felt "both sides are totally crazed."
I rest my case. We're all Kid Krazy.
But, I will say this for the second printing of the book jacket:
"Mega Hoax is 477 pages and I absolutely guarantee you will find a laugh on every page."
—Bob Boze Bell, Executive Editor, True West magazine
Bob Boze 11:31 AM
November 20, 2009
About a week ago I asked Carole Glenn to order a book for us on Amazon called Mega Hoax. I had heard through the Billy the Kid grapevine that a woman from Santa Fe named Gale Cooper has published an alleged expose on the digging up Billy project. We got the book on Wednesday and I saw it in my box when I got back from lunch. My managing editor Meghan Saar had already ear-marked all the pages True West is mentioned (this is especially funny considering that Dr. Cooper describes Meghan in the text as "The lioness" guarding my door) At about four, I had a few moments before I had to leave for my speech in Fountain Hills and I took a glance at it. I couldn't put it down! At about 4:40 I sent the following email to The Top Secret Writer:
"Hutton's Bug-Eyed Unctuous Face-Time"
Paul,
Oh, God, stop! I can't stop laughing! I have a speech in 45 minutes in Fountain Hills and I don't want to leave—ever. I just want to read this fantastic prose!
BBB
Paul Hutton and I are both singled out as part of a "shape-shifting" conspiracy to get Bill Richardson elected president of the United States (that sure worked out well). I get my own sub chapter, but Hutton is the arch villain of the piece. More details later.
Speaking of which, I Worked this morning on the dying donkey:
This is for our cover on Republicans and Democrats shooting it out in Mesilla in 1871. I'm working on several angles and hope to have something finalized this weekend to send down to Dan the Man.
“The world is full of men who spend their lives fleeing from something that doesn’t pursue them.”
—Old Vaquero Saying
Bob Boze 8:46 AM
November 19, 2009
Our office copies of The 2010 Source Book arrived this afternoon and it's a beautiful thing. If you want to find anything related to the West this is the issue you need to have (hint: subscribers get it free). Inside is our Eighth Annual Best of the West Awards and I predict the following people are going to be very happy: Jim Clark, Steve and Marcie Shaw, Jay Dusard, Pat Kearney and Gary George, Waddie Mitchell, Charles Harris III and Louise Sadler, Robert Utley, Jim Halperin and Steve Ivy, Mian Situ, Bill Anton, Bruce Lafountain, Mark Sublette, Jim Hatzell, Cattle Kate, Michael Guli, Bob Goldfeder, Patricia Wolf, Clint Orms, Trent Johnson, Mark Taggart, Anna Berry, Lorrie Zuzek, Denny and Pat Willis, Ken Klemm and Peter Thieriot, Marty Roberts, Victor and Kathy Garrison, John Bianchi, Jim Dunham. Rock Clark, Charmaine White, Jackson Polk, Madeleine Pickens, Sharon Paulin, Meghan Lally, Paul Zarzyski and Wylie, Sons of Joaquin, Dave Stamey, Ken Burns, Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray, Cormac McCarthy and Joel and Ethan Coen.
Twilight Neighborhood
I've had three people this week ask me if I know Stephenie Meyer, the Mormon housewife who created the Twilight phenom. "You know everyone in Cave Creek, don't you?" seems to be the refrain I get the most. Actually, I do not know her and I don't know anyone who does know her. For one thing, as I understand it, she moved out here from Mesa (What A Place-ah!) a few years ago. She evidently keeps a very low profile because I've heard the mayor doesn't even know her (and he gets asked about her more than I do!). I was talking to someone recently who said they saw her at Fry's, which is on Carefree Highway several miles west of here, but that's it. Wouldn't even know her if I saw her.
Went home for lunch and worked on gunfighting elephants. Had good source materials thanks to Robert Ray and Google:
Also working up a wonderful dying donkey. Going to be a fantasy cover. Ha.
"A man who claims to know what’s good for others is dangerous.”
—Old Vaquero Saying
Bob Boze 3:24 PM
November 19, 2009
Saw my first Low Pants Lance. I was on my way to yoga last Tuesday when I saw this tall kid angling down the alley by the Career School next to Black Mountain Gym. As I drove by I looked in the rearview mirror and saw that the back of his pants hung below the cheeks of his arse! He then jumped a wall so I got a real good view of the entire buttocks area. Amazing. I had seen photos of this phenom from New York City, but had never seen this extreme before, in the flesh.
Had a speech last night at the Fountain Hills Historical Society. Packed house (105 people) for dinner and a slide show created by Robert Ray to illustrate our 102 cover march to the present. Sold about ten books and drove home. Excellent time, well spent.
It's Dan the Man's B-Day today. He's 62. Here he is, at left, fifty-some years ago:
When I showed this slide last night the AV guy, Reno, said, "Man, that looks like Spin & Marty." Yes, Spin & Marty was a Disney serial that ran on the Mickey Mouse Club at about the same time this photo was taken. Dan and I are actually emulating the costumes of the TV show 26 Men, about the Arizona Rangers. We thought we were so authentic. Ha.
Happy Birthday Dan! Speaking of Dan The Man, I mentioned we are jamming on a cover for the January issue and Dan wants a 1900-style editorial cartoon. Here is an example of two masters of the medium from that time period. First up, Heinrich Kley's work:
And here's another elephant-related-editorial cartoon by James Montgomery Flagg:
Man those guys could draw! Of course Flagg is the guy who illustrated the iconic "Uncle Sam Wants You!" with Sam pointing out at us.
I'll post some of my sketches later, but in the meantime:
Classic Gunfights: Democrats Vs. Republicans
Well, I asked for headline suggestions and got them:
• Battle of the Bands
• Politics Most Deadly
• Dead Serious Politics
• The Dead Pols Society
• A Real Political Battle
• Politics cum 1871
—C.W. (a newspaper friend who doesn't want his name used)
• Kinky Friedman on politics, “Poly means more than one, and ticks are bloodsucking parasites.”
—submitted by Lance Ross
• "Killer Politics!...Donkeys and Elephants throw down" or "Massacre in Mesilla.the first REAL Red State", or "Hey you Asses, There's an Elephant in the room...and he's packin a .45!"
—submitted by Jeff Prechtel of the PUNdit Posse
• Grand Old Shoot Out: When Politics Meant Slinging Lead Instead of Mud
• Punching the Party Ticket Wild West Style: When Hanging Chad Had a Completely Different Meaning
• The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly Politics: A Real Republican and Democrat Shoot Out
• Six-Gun Politics: When Democrats and Republicans Actually Killed Each Other
• No Country For Sane Men: Republicans and Democrats Shoot It Out
• Blazing Politicos: Excuse Me While I Whip This Out
—Chris Zimmerman
"The whole history of the world is summed up in the fact that when nations are strong, they are not always just, and when they wish to be just, they are no longer strong."
—Sir Winston Churchill
Bob Boze 10:15 AM
November 18, 2009
When we first moved to Cave Creek in 1986, I took my sketchbook down into the creek bottom and while reclining beneath a huge sagauro did a series of sketches that ended up contributing to this pen and ink illustration:
The cave that Cave Creek is named for is in the embankment at left. Since these giants are in the creek bottom they are susceptible to more freezing and frostbite damage because the canyon they are in holds the cold air down. When this happens the arms of the saguaro twist, typically going down, instead of up. They appear to be almost in agony and considering the mechanics of freezing they probably are. Makes for some very distinctive saguaro shapes though.
I Can't Believe I Drew it
Another page of sketches from my quest to do 10,000 bad drawings:
Another Decade, Another Cover Quest
Editorially, we're on to 2010 and busy trying to come up with a striking cover for our January issue. As I mentioned the other day, the cover story, by Bob Alexander, involves a gunfight between Republicans and Democrats in Mesilla, New Mexico in 1871 where at least 7 were killed (some reports claim 15) and fifty wounded. Essentially, two parades, one Republican, one Democrat, marching in opposite directions, met, hurled insults and the ball opened. Here is my first rough sketch of the idea:
Supposedly, both sides had some semblance of a band and in fact, one of the participants was saved by a bullet hitting his French horn. Here is a tighter rough of the concept:
Our art director, Dan The Man Harshberger was out for our anniversary lunch yesterday (his 62nd birthday is tomorrow). He is not too enthusiastic about the busy nature of the sketch and would like to see something more isolated, and suggested perhaps a 1900 style editorial cartoon a la James Montgomery Flagg or Heinrich Kley. Adding that perhaps we could show a symbolic elephant shooting it out with a donkey. Hmmmmm:
Also wrestling with the cover head. I want something like:
When Republicans Actually Killed Democrats
It needs to be short and snappy. Suggestions welcome.
It's pretty amazing. We think things are tense today, but this makes everything seem very tame by comparison.
“Politics is like a dysfunctional marriage because every fight is really about something else.”
—Dick Armey
Bob Boze 9:29 AM
November 17, 2009
We got some rain over the weekend, not much, but just enough to get that great desert smell. I just found out in a newsletter that Kathy gets called Bottom Line that "when the weather is dry, certain plants secrete an oil that is absorbed by rocks and soil. When it rains, the oil is released into the air as a gas, creating an aroma called petrichor."
Not Bad Weather
Another page from my quest to do 10,000 bad drawings:
I hosted a free lunch for the staff today to honor our tenth anniversary and to celebrate the completion of our Third Annual Source Book (which Robert Ray has nicknamed "The Stress Book.") Carole ordered Subway sandos for everyone and we had a fine time.
"There is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather."
—John Ruskin
Don't tell that to a tornado survivor.
Bob Boze 12:06 PM
November 16, 2009
Ever sit around and wonder where all the ridiculous myths and legends come from? You know, the ones where you kind of shake your head and go, "That is the most ridiculous thing I have heard in my life. Who makes this crap up?"
Well, here's a good example. For Halloween this year (in Cave Creek) at Cody's Smokehouse & Grill (which officially opens in December at the location of a series of failed restaurants and bars starting with Fandango), the new owners created a "big 21-and-older Halloween" haunted house. One of the organizers told the newspaper this whopper: "We were told by Cave Creekers that Cody's was built on an old Indian burial ground. There have been movies shot there, and when it was another restaurant, people claimed to see ghosts and say it is haunted."
The only true statement in that sentence is "people claimed to see ghosts."
Ten years ago it was an empty lot across from the Mineshaft Restaurant where David K. Jones and I did our Cave Creek morning radio show. The land was bought by a new guy in town, a hotshot developer who spent a bundle on building a state of the art restaurant on the site (don't quote me, but I seem to remember he dumped about $1.4 mil into the build-out). He once bragged to me that if he couldn't beat the food at El Encanto he didn't deserve to be in business.
Okay.
Fandango's had a big grand opening, and everyone in town came. I sat on the patio near a trickling waterfall and chose the albondigas soup. Instead, I received something that tasted and looked suspiciously like French onion soup. When I told the waitress someone must have confused my order, the owner's wife (a stunning brunette) came over and tried to convince me it was albondigas soup. I felt bad for her, because after a while it became obvious she was trying to cover up the fact that their cook (who was anglo) didn't know how to make albondigas soup. Then why was it on the menu? She didn't have an answer. I made a vow to never return. Eventually, no one else went either (thus the ghosts of customers past). Reggie Jackson from Rawhide came out six months later and took me to lunch there. He was buying so I didn't protest too much, although I warned him. Lo and behold, they had a new chef, a talented hispanic from Jalepenos down on Pinnacle Peak Road, and he knew what he was doing, but it was too late. The stink of inauthentic was on the place and the restaurant died an ignoble death not long after.
Moral: he didn't deserve to be in business.
After Fandangos it sat vacant for a long time. Someone tried to make it a bar, The Long Branch, but that too faded. It might have been something else but I don't remember. Anyway, some kid, trying to drum up business for a new venture pulled a tall tale out of her rectum and here's the crazy part: I predict that thirty, forty years from now someone will extract this windy out of the newspaper archives, dust it off, only by then it will be a historic fact.
Hey, it was in the newspaper.
So when I'm doing research on something that happened 100 years ago and someone says to me, "of course it's true, it was in the newspaper," I always have to laugh.
"People are more likely to believe a blatant lie over a half truth."
—Adolf Hitler, the father of modern advertising
Bob Boze 3:08 PM
November 16, 2009
Just got more info on the remake of True Grit by the Coen Brothers. Steven Spielberg is producing along with Scott Rudin (who produced No Country For Old No Men). It looks like Matt Damon is going to play the Texas Ranger (Glenn Campbell in the original), Josh Brolin is being talked about as the bad guy Ned Pepper (Robert Duvall) and according to Variety, the Coens want Jeff Bridges for the gruff U.S. Marshal (John Wayne). They hope to begin filming next spring.
I am a big Coen brothers fan. My kids often quote The Big Lebowski (which starred Jeff Bridges as "The Dude") and we just saw their latest flick A Serious Man last weekend, which I really enjoyed. It's about growing up Jewish in Minnesota and is allegedly based on the travails of Job, from the bible. At the end of the movie, during the credits it says: "No jews were hurt during the filming of this movie."
Funny, funny boys.
Working on a cover story by Bob Alexander for the January issue on Republicans and Democrats in an actual toe to toe shootout where 7 died (some claim 15) and forty were wounded. This was in Mesilla in 1871.
I Can't Believe I Drew It
Another little set of gems from my quest to do 10,000 bad drawings:
Deena Bell went to her 10 High School Reunion last Saturday night. Not sure if this is a trend, but they just met at Harold's (a legendary bar in Cave Creek). No formalities, no registration, no banquet, no name tags. We had fun on Sunday morning comparing her phone photos of everyone with the high school annual.
"It's much easier to eat, drink and be merry if someone else is picking up the tab."
—Old Vaquero Saying
Bob Boze 11:51 AM
November 13, 2009
Charlie Waters has just completed editing a multi-part series on Valor as it applies to our servicemen and women at war in Iraq and Afghanistan. The 54-part series started Sunday and you can read the stories of heroism at Americanvalor.net
Charlie adds, "We will add stories of the six Medal of Honor winners on Sunday, then start adding one new profile of a medal recipient each day to the site next Tuesday through the end of the year. Eight stories are already on the site."
I checked out one of them yesterday, the story of Michael David Carter, a photographer who got caught in one of the worst firefights in the long Afghan war. I had tears in my eyes reading it. And you can click on a video version where he tells the story himself. Amazing stuff and it should be required viewing by every American.
Also check out Allen Barra’s article on the first football game, including info on John Clum. It's called The First Down, Ever
Just got word from Allen Huffines that the Coen Brothers next flick, True Grit, has landed the following casting: Matt Damon as LeBeouf (Glenn Cambell), and Josh Brolin as Ned Pepper (Robert Duvall).
"If people concentrated on the really important things in life, there'd be a shortage of fishing poles."
—Doug Larson
Bob Boze 12:54 PM
November 13, 2009
Rod Cook of Caldwell, Kansas is doing a new book on the area and its history. Rod really helped me out when I was doing a Caldwell Classic Gunfight on the fight there between cowboys and the locals. The marshal in Caldwell in 1884 was Henry Brown.
Rod liked the first scratchboard I did of the hanging with the darkness and he wondered if I could combine that starkness with the image I posted yesterday. I told him I would try.
Although Brown once rode with Billy the Kid, he seemed to have cleaned up his act and had recently married and settled down. He took some time off and with a deputy and two Texas cowboys set off for Medicine Lodge, Kansas, which is about sixty miles west of Caldwell. The quartet tried to rob the local bank, but instead, ended up killing the bank president and a clerk. After a brief getaway, they were captured, because of a lame horse and brought back to Medicine Lodge and put in a makeshift jail, a barn. A local photographer came and took their photo:
Left to right, Henry Brown, John Wesley, William Smith and Ben Wheeler (Brown's deputy). Note that Brown is shackled to Wesley at the ankle and Wheeler is handcuffed to Smith. Also, not the badge on the guy at left (I hadn't noticed the badge until I was using this guy as a portrait study for the hanging scratchboard below):
At nine o'clock on the evening of the day this photo was taken, three shots were heard and a mob stormed this barn, sweeping aside the guards (where's Wyatt Earp when you really need him?). Brown had slipped off his boot, thus removing the shackle and crouched by the barn door, inside. As the mob lurched into the dark stable, Brown lept up and slugged the first guy and fought his way clear. He almost made it to freedom, but a farmer with a shotgun cut him in half. Meanwhile Wheeler grabbed ahold of a gun barrel and tried to deflect the shot, but instead the pistol blows off two of his fingers. The muzzle flash sets his vest on fire and he runs through the crowd with the entire mob chasing him and shooting at him. Incredibly he is still alive. The three remaining prisoners are dragged down to the creek bottom where the rest of the mob is waiting (or, did they all go from one place to another? We don't know). Since it is dark and a heavy rain has been falling all day, I imagine the mob started a fire to see. They only had two ropes for three guys. Wheeler was pleading for his life telling the mob that there were more people involved and that if they would spare his life he would tell them, but they didn't listen and up he went, bleating so loudly he could be heard three blocks away. The two Texas cowboys died game and calm. One asked to send his stuff to his mama, and the other said he didn't want his mama to know.
So Texan.
And then it was over. That is the scene I wanted to capture. As the aftermath of the horrible deed began to sink in:
Notice Wheeler's vest is still smoldering.
"The only time you don't want to fail is the last time you try."
—Charles F. Kettering
Bob Boze 10:25 AM
November 12, 2009
My son Thomas Charles came out today to show off his cherry 1984 El Camino which he just bought from a Snowbird in Mesa:
A car buff from Minnesota sold it to T. and it is very nice.
Meanwhile, I took one more crack at the Medicine Lodge Hanging:
That's the barn, at top, where the prisoners were being held. There is a famous photo of the four outlaws standing in front of the doorway just hours before they were killed. Some of the men in that picture I used for reference in this scratchboard. I may add a few distinguishing windows in the morning. Or not.
“Making money is like digging with a pin; losing money is like pouring water on the sand.”
—Old Vaquero Saying
Bob Boze 3:32 PM
November 12, 2009
Haven't been sleeping well. Woke up at 2:30 last night pondering conflicts. Having survived twin heart attacks a year-and-a-half ago, I keep saying to myself, "This can't be healthy." As I laid there listening to the quiet breathing of my wife and Peaches, my mind kept sinking to the morbid thought of an obituary that reads in part, "He had a warning, a second chance, but he couldn't change his lifestyle."
I really don't want to read that in my obit.
Speaking of which, when I began my 2,600 step walk with Peaches this morning I started thinking about writing my own obit. Really, most obits are so cloyingly awful, you rarely get a sense of who the person was really. From there I gravitated to, well, which part of me would write the obit? The part of me that digs who I am, or the critic who, sits on my other shoulder, and negates me at every turn. As I came back up the driveway, I realized I should probably have the two voices in my head write their version of my life, and death:
A Fitting Sendoff for A Small Town Big Showoff
Born at an early age, Bob Boze Bell was a poor student, an average athlete and a so-so artist. He was fired from many jobs including the Tel Engineering, New Times, KSLX radio and Young Buck Radio. While he sipped from many cups, he drank of none. What he did have was a very high opinion of himself. He likes to say he graduated with the valedictorian of his class, but even this line was stolen from his friend Wonderful Russ.
He failed at almost everything he tried, except getting attention. He did this quite successfully all through grade school, high school and at the University of Arizona where he spent five years, amassing a 3.1 (C-) grade average and no degree.
BBB once contemplated doing an article entitled: "Day of Infamy Spawns Small Town Showoff." Based on the fact that his father was drafted in 1941 (after Pearl Harbor) and was stationed in Kingman, Arizona, where the Iowa buck private met and married Bobbie Guess, a rancher's daughter.
Of course, he famously claimed he did 10,000 bad drawings, but why didn't he take his wife's advice and do 10,000 loads of laundry, or something useful? He had no answer for this.
He was also fond of saying, "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." As with the 10,000 bad drawings quest, he was very good at doing the same things over and over and expecting different results. When asked to be specific he replied, "Well, like this blog."
—The Critic
A Nation Weeps For The Loss of A Legendary Westerner
Never has the nation come to a stop quite like the news yesterday that legendary Zonie, Bob Boze Bell died after a third fatal heart attack. His body was not found for several days because he had fallen into the back part of his studio amidst a stack of unsold paintings. Only the growling of his faithful dog Peaches, who was chewing on one of BBB's apendages, alerted authorities.
Virtually every attractive woman he ever knew now admits they sure wished they had slept with him.
—Super Ego
"For everything you have missed, you have gained something else."
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Bob Boze 8:44 AM
All of us who write books about Billy the Kid hope for the three Rs: that we will be respected, get rich from book sales and be fondly remembered for our efforts to get to the truth about Billy. Of course there have been over 1,000 books written about the Kid and as I like to brag, I didn't write all of them. Nope, not even half. I'm not exactly sure of the actual total, but let's just say I'm reading two new Billy books even as you read this.
But, I digress.
In our juvenile fantasies we can imagine people sitting around 100 years from now, fantasizing what it was like to be on the trail with the legendary writers (that would be me) and researchers who were on the trail of the legendary outlaw. What role will we have in the future stories? Will we be compared to Phil Rasch? Walter Noble Burns? William Morrison? Ash Upson? Jerry Weddle? (Oh, please dear God, don't let it be Jerry Weddle!)
In short, we all long to be part of The Story. But, as I am fond of quoting, "History is a cruel trick played on the dead by the living." And, I have a strong hunch how we are going to be remembered has less to do with our efforts and more to do with the bizarre aspects of Kid Krazy. And by Kid Krazy, I mean the absolutely incredible way in which everyone associated with covering this legend goes off the deep end.
Case in point: an ex-Beverly Hills psychiatrist named Gail Cooper has written an expose titled Mega Hoax: The Strange Plot to Exhume Billy the Kid And Become President.
Tell Me Something I Don't Know
In Mega Hoax, Ms. Cooper describes Paul Hutton as "a parasitic cuckoo bird."
Tell me something I don't know.
She also claims that Hutton is a "shape shifter."
Tell me something I don't know.
She goes after me like this: "Doing the ricochet trick Bob Boze Bell comes on screen [History Channel's Investigating History: Billy the Kid by Bill Kurtis] to state snidely that: "Friends of Pat Garrett conducted what they called an autopsy. But there were no photographs." Then she mocks me for being a self-avowed cartoonist and not being an acredited historian.
Come on Gail, tell me something I don't know.
Continuing her harangue of everyone who appeared on the History Channel show, she says, "Since all hoaxers, except [Gov] Richardson and Robins, are in cowboy costumes, there appear innumerable droopy or stringy mustaches on talking-heads throughout—inadvertently leaving the impression for cognoscenti that Old West characters were all jive-talkers; and leaving the audience at large waiting for them to join in a final scene singing:
"Oh come along boys and listen to my tale. . .
Come a ti yi yippie yippie yay come a ti yi hippie yippie yippie yay."
Tell me something I don't know.
Often, author Cooper goes after Hutton (who is the arch villain of the entire piece) and makes a fool of herself. For example, she quotes Hutton as claiming the Kid was 12 when his mother died, then she corrects him by claiming the Kid's real age was "14 1/2". Really? Historians and researchers have never found a birth record for the Kid, can't agree on when, or even where he was born and you've got it down to fourteen and a half? Amazing.
Okay, so now you've told me something I didn't know. Sorry.
Here's the part with my "lioness" managing editor and Cooper's pitch to run her hoax story in True West: "Into that lions' den, I went with my hoax expose! The lioness to who I was assigned was Meghan Saar, who e-mailed me on January 31, 2006: 'All parties in this article should be given the opportunity to respond; the article feels very biased and skewered toward one direction, and I feel this may be because not all parties were asked to comment.' I withdrew the article the next day, citing their bias."
Meghan's quote says it all, for me and our position on the entire project. But there is one more quote worth citing. After she took her article back she went to the New York Times, among others. First, she gives me credit, "The Boze Bell fiasco, at least, dragged me out of my anonymity closet." But when she contacted the New York Times reporter who wrote the front page article announcing the dig, he said to her he felt "both sides are totally crazed."
I rest my case. We're all Kid Krazy.
But, I will say this for the second printing of the book jacket:
"Mega Hoax is 477 pages and I absolutely guarantee you will find a laugh on every page."
—Bob Boze Bell, Executive Editor, True West magazine
Bob Boze 11:31 AM
November 20, 2009
About a week ago I asked Carole Glenn to order a book for us on Amazon called Mega Hoax. I had heard through the Billy the Kid grapevine that a woman from Santa Fe named Gale Cooper has published an alleged expose on the digging up Billy project. We got the book on Wednesday and I saw it in my box when I got back from lunch. My managing editor Meghan Saar had already ear-marked all the pages True West is mentioned (this is especially funny considering that Dr. Cooper describes Meghan in the text as "The lioness" guarding my door) At about four, I had a few moments before I had to leave for my speech in Fountain Hills and I took a glance at it. I couldn't put it down! At about 4:40 I sent the following email to The Top Secret Writer:
"Hutton's Bug-Eyed Unctuous Face-Time"
Paul,
Oh, God, stop! I can't stop laughing! I have a speech in 45 minutes in Fountain Hills and I don't want to leave—ever. I just want to read this fantastic prose!
BBB
Paul Hutton and I are both singled out as part of a "shape-shifting" conspiracy to get Bill Richardson elected president of the United States (that sure worked out well). I get my own sub chapter, but Hutton is the arch villain of the piece. More details later.
Speaking of which, I Worked this morning on the dying donkey:
This is for our cover on Republicans and Democrats shooting it out in Mesilla in 1871. I'm working on several angles and hope to have something finalized this weekend to send down to Dan the Man.
“The world is full of men who spend their lives fleeing from something that doesn’t pursue them.”
—Old Vaquero Saying
Bob Boze 8:46 AM
November 19, 2009
Our office copies of The 2010 Source Book arrived this afternoon and it's a beautiful thing. If you want to find anything related to the West this is the issue you need to have (hint: subscribers get it free). Inside is our Eighth Annual Best of the West Awards and I predict the following people are going to be very happy: Jim Clark, Steve and Marcie Shaw, Jay Dusard, Pat Kearney and Gary George, Waddie Mitchell, Charles Harris III and Louise Sadler, Robert Utley, Jim Halperin and Steve Ivy, Mian Situ, Bill Anton, Bruce Lafountain, Mark Sublette, Jim Hatzell, Cattle Kate, Michael Guli, Bob Goldfeder, Patricia Wolf, Clint Orms, Trent Johnson, Mark Taggart, Anna Berry, Lorrie Zuzek, Denny and Pat Willis, Ken Klemm and Peter Thieriot, Marty Roberts, Victor and Kathy Garrison, John Bianchi, Jim Dunham. Rock Clark, Charmaine White, Jackson Polk, Madeleine Pickens, Sharon Paulin, Meghan Lally, Paul Zarzyski and Wylie, Sons of Joaquin, Dave Stamey, Ken Burns, Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray, Cormac McCarthy and Joel and Ethan Coen.
Twilight Neighborhood
I've had three people this week ask me if I know Stephenie Meyer, the Mormon housewife who created the Twilight phenom. "You know everyone in Cave Creek, don't you?" seems to be the refrain I get the most. Actually, I do not know her and I don't know anyone who does know her. For one thing, as I understand it, she moved out here from Mesa (What A Place-ah!) a few years ago. She evidently keeps a very low profile because I've heard the mayor doesn't even know her (and he gets asked about her more than I do!). I was talking to someone recently who said they saw her at Fry's, which is on Carefree Highway several miles west of here, but that's it. Wouldn't even know her if I saw her.
Went home for lunch and worked on gunfighting elephants. Had good source materials thanks to Robert Ray and Google:
Also working up a wonderful dying donkey. Going to be a fantasy cover. Ha.
"A man who claims to know what’s good for others is dangerous.”
—Old Vaquero Saying
Bob Boze 3:24 PM
November 19, 2009
Saw my first Low Pants Lance. I was on my way to yoga last Tuesday when I saw this tall kid angling down the alley by the Career School next to Black Mountain Gym. As I drove by I looked in the rearview mirror and saw that the back of his pants hung below the cheeks of his arse! He then jumped a wall so I got a real good view of the entire buttocks area. Amazing. I had seen photos of this phenom from New York City, but had never seen this extreme before, in the flesh.
Had a speech last night at the Fountain Hills Historical Society. Packed house (105 people) for dinner and a slide show created by Robert Ray to illustrate our 102 cover march to the present. Sold about ten books and drove home. Excellent time, well spent.
It's Dan the Man's B-Day today. He's 62. Here he is, at left, fifty-some years ago:
When I showed this slide last night the AV guy, Reno, said, "Man, that looks like Spin & Marty." Yes, Spin & Marty was a Disney serial that ran on the Mickey Mouse Club at about the same time this photo was taken. Dan and I are actually emulating the costumes of the TV show 26 Men, about the Arizona Rangers. We thought we were so authentic. Ha.
Happy Birthday Dan! Speaking of Dan The Man, I mentioned we are jamming on a cover for the January issue and Dan wants a 1900-style editorial cartoon. Here is an example of two masters of the medium from that time period. First up, Heinrich Kley's work:
And here's another elephant-related-editorial cartoon by James Montgomery Flagg:
Man those guys could draw! Of course Flagg is the guy who illustrated the iconic "Uncle Sam Wants You!" with Sam pointing out at us.
I'll post some of my sketches later, but in the meantime:
Classic Gunfights: Democrats Vs. Republicans
Well, I asked for headline suggestions and got them:
• Battle of the Bands
• Politics Most Deadly
• Dead Serious Politics
• The Dead Pols Society
• A Real Political Battle
• Politics cum 1871
—C.W. (a newspaper friend who doesn't want his name used)
• Kinky Friedman on politics, “Poly means more than one, and ticks are bloodsucking parasites.”
—submitted by Lance Ross
• "Killer Politics!...Donkeys and Elephants throw down" or "Massacre in Mesilla.the first REAL Red State", or "Hey you Asses, There's an Elephant in the room...and he's packin a .45!"
—submitted by Jeff Prechtel of the PUNdit Posse
• Grand Old Shoot Out: When Politics Meant Slinging Lead Instead of Mud
• Punching the Party Ticket Wild West Style: When Hanging Chad Had a Completely Different Meaning
• The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly Politics: A Real Republican and Democrat Shoot Out
• Six-Gun Politics: When Democrats and Republicans Actually Killed Each Other
• No Country For Sane Men: Republicans and Democrats Shoot It Out
• Blazing Politicos: Excuse Me While I Whip This Out
—Chris Zimmerman
"The whole history of the world is summed up in the fact that when nations are strong, they are not always just, and when they wish to be just, they are no longer strong."
—Sir Winston Churchill
Bob Boze 10:15 AM
November 18, 2009
When we first moved to Cave Creek in 1986, I took my sketchbook down into the creek bottom and while reclining beneath a huge sagauro did a series of sketches that ended up contributing to this pen and ink illustration:
The cave that Cave Creek is named for is in the embankment at left. Since these giants are in the creek bottom they are susceptible to more freezing and frostbite damage because the canyon they are in holds the cold air down. When this happens the arms of the saguaro twist, typically going down, instead of up. They appear to be almost in agony and considering the mechanics of freezing they probably are. Makes for some very distinctive saguaro shapes though.
I Can't Believe I Drew it
Another page of sketches from my quest to do 10,000 bad drawings:
Another Decade, Another Cover Quest
Editorially, we're on to 2010 and busy trying to come up with a striking cover for our January issue. As I mentioned the other day, the cover story, by Bob Alexander, involves a gunfight between Republicans and Democrats in Mesilla, New Mexico in 1871 where at least 7 were killed (some reports claim 15) and fifty wounded. Essentially, two parades, one Republican, one Democrat, marching in opposite directions, met, hurled insults and the ball opened. Here is my first rough sketch of the idea:
Supposedly, both sides had some semblance of a band and in fact, one of the participants was saved by a bullet hitting his French horn. Here is a tighter rough of the concept:
Our art director, Dan The Man Harshberger was out for our anniversary lunch yesterday (his 62nd birthday is tomorrow). He is not too enthusiastic about the busy nature of the sketch and would like to see something more isolated, and suggested perhaps a 1900 style editorial cartoon a la James Montgomery Flagg or Heinrich Kley. Adding that perhaps we could show a symbolic elephant shooting it out with a donkey. Hmmmmm:
Also wrestling with the cover head. I want something like:
When Republicans Actually Killed Democrats
It needs to be short and snappy. Suggestions welcome.
It's pretty amazing. We think things are tense today, but this makes everything seem very tame by comparison.
“Politics is like a dysfunctional marriage because every fight is really about something else.”
—Dick Armey
Bob Boze 9:29 AM
November 17, 2009
We got some rain over the weekend, not much, but just enough to get that great desert smell. I just found out in a newsletter that Kathy gets called Bottom Line that "when the weather is dry, certain plants secrete an oil that is absorbed by rocks and soil. When it rains, the oil is released into the air as a gas, creating an aroma called petrichor."
Not Bad Weather
Another page from my quest to do 10,000 bad drawings:
I hosted a free lunch for the staff today to honor our tenth anniversary and to celebrate the completion of our Third Annual Source Book (which Robert Ray has nicknamed "The Stress Book.") Carole ordered Subway sandos for everyone and we had a fine time.
"There is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather."
—John Ruskin
Don't tell that to a tornado survivor.
Bob Boze 12:06 PM
November 16, 2009
Ever sit around and wonder where all the ridiculous myths and legends come from? You know, the ones where you kind of shake your head and go, "That is the most ridiculous thing I have heard in my life. Who makes this crap up?"
Well, here's a good example. For Halloween this year (in Cave Creek) at Cody's Smokehouse & Grill (which officially opens in December at the location of a series of failed restaurants and bars starting with Fandango), the new owners created a "big 21-and-older Halloween" haunted house. One of the organizers told the newspaper this whopper: "We were told by Cave Creekers that Cody's was built on an old Indian burial ground. There have been movies shot there, and when it was another restaurant, people claimed to see ghosts and say it is haunted."
The only true statement in that sentence is "people claimed to see ghosts."
Ten years ago it was an empty lot across from the Mineshaft Restaurant where David K. Jones and I did our Cave Creek morning radio show. The land was bought by a new guy in town, a hotshot developer who spent a bundle on building a state of the art restaurant on the site (don't quote me, but I seem to remember he dumped about $1.4 mil into the build-out). He once bragged to me that if he couldn't beat the food at El Encanto he didn't deserve to be in business.
Okay.
Fandango's had a big grand opening, and everyone in town came. I sat on the patio near a trickling waterfall and chose the albondigas soup. Instead, I received something that tasted and looked suspiciously like French onion soup. When I told the waitress someone must have confused my order, the owner's wife (a stunning brunette) came over and tried to convince me it was albondigas soup. I felt bad for her, because after a while it became obvious she was trying to cover up the fact that their cook (who was anglo) didn't know how to make albondigas soup. Then why was it on the menu? She didn't have an answer. I made a vow to never return. Eventually, no one else went either (thus the ghosts of customers past). Reggie Jackson from Rawhide came out six months later and took me to lunch there. He was buying so I didn't protest too much, although I warned him. Lo and behold, they had a new chef, a talented hispanic from Jalepenos down on Pinnacle Peak Road, and he knew what he was doing, but it was too late. The stink of inauthentic was on the place and the restaurant died an ignoble death not long after.
Moral: he didn't deserve to be in business.
After Fandangos it sat vacant for a long time. Someone tried to make it a bar, The Long Branch, but that too faded. It might have been something else but I don't remember. Anyway, some kid, trying to drum up business for a new venture pulled a tall tale out of her rectum and here's the crazy part: I predict that thirty, forty years from now someone will extract this windy out of the newspaper archives, dust it off, only by then it will be a historic fact.
Hey, it was in the newspaper.
So when I'm doing research on something that happened 100 years ago and someone says to me, "of course it's true, it was in the newspaper," I always have to laugh.
"People are more likely to believe a blatant lie over a half truth."
—Adolf Hitler, the father of modern advertising
Bob Boze 3:08 PM
November 16, 2009
Just got more info on the remake of True Grit by the Coen Brothers. Steven Spielberg is producing along with Scott Rudin (who produced No Country For Old No Men). It looks like Matt Damon is going to play the Texas Ranger (Glenn Campbell in the original), Josh Brolin is being talked about as the bad guy Ned Pepper (Robert Duvall) and according to Variety, the Coens want Jeff Bridges for the gruff U.S. Marshal (John Wayne). They hope to begin filming next spring.
I am a big Coen brothers fan. My kids often quote The Big Lebowski (which starred Jeff Bridges as "The Dude") and we just saw their latest flick A Serious Man last weekend, which I really enjoyed. It's about growing up Jewish in Minnesota and is allegedly based on the travails of Job, from the bible. At the end of the movie, during the credits it says: "No jews were hurt during the filming of this movie."
Funny, funny boys.
Working on a cover story by Bob Alexander for the January issue on Republicans and Democrats in an actual toe to toe shootout where 7 died (some claim 15) and forty were wounded. This was in Mesilla in 1871.
I Can't Believe I Drew It
Another little set of gems from my quest to do 10,000 bad drawings:
Deena Bell went to her 10 High School Reunion last Saturday night. Not sure if this is a trend, but they just met at Harold's (a legendary bar in Cave Creek). No formalities, no registration, no banquet, no name tags. We had fun on Sunday morning comparing her phone photos of everyone with the high school annual.
"It's much easier to eat, drink and be merry if someone else is picking up the tab."
—Old Vaquero Saying
Bob Boze 11:51 AM
November 13, 2009
Charlie Waters has just completed editing a multi-part series on Valor as it applies to our servicemen and women at war in Iraq and Afghanistan. The 54-part series started Sunday and you can read the stories of heroism at Americanvalor.net
Charlie adds, "We will add stories of the six Medal of Honor winners on Sunday, then start adding one new profile of a medal recipient each day to the site next Tuesday through the end of the year. Eight stories are already on the site."
I checked out one of them yesterday, the story of Michael David Carter, a photographer who got caught in one of the worst firefights in the long Afghan war. I had tears in my eyes reading it. And you can click on a video version where he tells the story himself. Amazing stuff and it should be required viewing by every American.
Also check out Allen Barra’s article on the first football game, including info on John Clum. It's called The First Down, Ever
Just got word from Allen Huffines that the Coen Brothers next flick, True Grit, has landed the following casting: Matt Damon as LeBeouf (Glenn Cambell), and Josh Brolin as Ned Pepper (Robert Duvall).
"If people concentrated on the really important things in life, there'd be a shortage of fishing poles."
—Doug Larson
Bob Boze 12:54 PM
November 13, 2009
Rod Cook of Caldwell, Kansas is doing a new book on the area and its history. Rod really helped me out when I was doing a Caldwell Classic Gunfight on the fight there between cowboys and the locals. The marshal in Caldwell in 1884 was Henry Brown.
Rod liked the first scratchboard I did of the hanging with the darkness and he wondered if I could combine that starkness with the image I posted yesterday. I told him I would try.
Although Brown once rode with Billy the Kid, he seemed to have cleaned up his act and had recently married and settled down. He took some time off and with a deputy and two Texas cowboys set off for Medicine Lodge, Kansas, which is about sixty miles west of Caldwell. The quartet tried to rob the local bank, but instead, ended up killing the bank president and a clerk. After a brief getaway, they were captured, because of a lame horse and brought back to Medicine Lodge and put in a makeshift jail, a barn. A local photographer came and took their photo:
Left to right, Henry Brown, John Wesley, William Smith and Ben Wheeler (Brown's deputy). Note that Brown is shackled to Wesley at the ankle and Wheeler is handcuffed to Smith. Also, not the badge on the guy at left (I hadn't noticed the badge until I was using this guy as a portrait study for the hanging scratchboard below):
At nine o'clock on the evening of the day this photo was taken, three shots were heard and a mob stormed this barn, sweeping aside the guards (where's Wyatt Earp when you really need him?). Brown had slipped off his boot, thus removing the shackle and crouched by the barn door, inside. As the mob lurched into the dark stable, Brown lept up and slugged the first guy and fought his way clear. He almost made it to freedom, but a farmer with a shotgun cut him in half. Meanwhile Wheeler grabbed ahold of a gun barrel and tried to deflect the shot, but instead the pistol blows off two of his fingers. The muzzle flash sets his vest on fire and he runs through the crowd with the entire mob chasing him and shooting at him. Incredibly he is still alive. The three remaining prisoners are dragged down to the creek bottom where the rest of the mob is waiting (or, did they all go from one place to another? We don't know). Since it is dark and a heavy rain has been falling all day, I imagine the mob started a fire to see. They only had two ropes for three guys. Wheeler was pleading for his life telling the mob that there were more people involved and that if they would spare his life he would tell them, but they didn't listen and up he went, bleating so loudly he could be heard three blocks away. The two Texas cowboys died game and calm. One asked to send his stuff to his mama, and the other said he didn't want his mama to know.
So Texan.
And then it was over. That is the scene I wanted to capture. As the aftermath of the horrible deed began to sink in:
Notice Wheeler's vest is still smoldering.
"The only time you don't want to fail is the last time you try."
—Charles F. Kettering
Bob Boze 10:25 AM
November 12, 2009
My son Thomas Charles came out today to show off his cherry 1984 El Camino which he just bought from a Snowbird in Mesa:
A car buff from Minnesota sold it to T. and it is very nice.
Meanwhile, I took one more crack at the Medicine Lodge Hanging:
That's the barn, at top, where the prisoners were being held. There is a famous photo of the four outlaws standing in front of the doorway just hours before they were killed. Some of the men in that picture I used for reference in this scratchboard. I may add a few distinguishing windows in the morning. Or not.
“Making money is like digging with a pin; losing money is like pouring water on the sand.”
—Old Vaquero Saying
Bob Boze 3:32 PM
November 12, 2009
Haven't been sleeping well. Woke up at 2:30 last night pondering conflicts. Having survived twin heart attacks a year-and-a-half ago, I keep saying to myself, "This can't be healthy." As I laid there listening to the quiet breathing of my wife and Peaches, my mind kept sinking to the morbid thought of an obituary that reads in part, "He had a warning, a second chance, but he couldn't change his lifestyle."
I really don't want to read that in my obit.
Speaking of which, when I began my 2,600 step walk with Peaches this morning I started thinking about writing my own obit. Really, most obits are so cloyingly awful, you rarely get a sense of who the person was really. From there I gravitated to, well, which part of me would write the obit? The part of me that digs who I am, or the critic who, sits on my other shoulder, and negates me at every turn. As I came back up the driveway, I realized I should probably have the two voices in my head write their version of my life, and death:
A Fitting Sendoff for A Small Town Big Showoff
Born at an early age, Bob Boze Bell was a poor student, an average athlete and a so-so artist. He was fired from many jobs including the Tel Engineering, New Times, KSLX radio and Young Buck Radio. While he sipped from many cups, he drank of none. What he did have was a very high opinion of himself. He likes to say he graduated with the valedictorian of his class, but even this line was stolen from his friend Wonderful Russ.
He failed at almost everything he tried, except getting attention. He did this quite successfully all through grade school, high school and at the University of Arizona where he spent five years, amassing a 3.1 (C-) grade average and no degree.
BBB once contemplated doing an article entitled: "Day of Infamy Spawns Small Town Showoff." Based on the fact that his father was drafted in 1941 (after Pearl Harbor) and was stationed in Kingman, Arizona, where the Iowa buck private met and married Bobbie Guess, a rancher's daughter.
Of course, he famously claimed he did 10,000 bad drawings, but why didn't he take his wife's advice and do 10,000 loads of laundry, or something useful? He had no answer for this.
He was also fond of saying, "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." As with the 10,000 bad drawings quest, he was very good at doing the same things over and over and expecting different results. When asked to be specific he replied, "Well, like this blog."
—The Critic
A Nation Weeps For The Loss of A Legendary Westerner
Never has the nation come to a stop quite like the news yesterday that legendary Zonie, Bob Boze Bell died after a third fatal heart attack. His body was not found for several days because he had fallen into the back part of his studio amidst a stack of unsold paintings. Only the growling of his faithful dog Peaches, who was chewing on one of BBB's apendages, alerted authorities.
Virtually every attractive woman he ever knew now admits they sure wished they had slept with him.
—Super Ego
"For everything you have missed, you have gained something else."
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Bob Boze 8:44 AM
