November 18, 2005
Got into the office at 7:30 and went over the scripts Mark Boardman wrote for our new round of True West Moments we are going to record today down at Canyon Records. Mark wrote six bits and we tweaked them and moved stuff around for length and effect.

Tom Carpenter believes yesterday’s posting proves I am actually a "myth-anthrope."

George Laibe drove us down into the Beast and we got to the studio at 10:30. Our engineer, Jack Miller, had created a special CD for George of Eclectic Mouse, the avant garde Phoenix band who put out a Blood, Sweat & Tears type album in 1967. We sat and listened to the first track in awe. So progressive and, yes—eclectic—for that ancient time period.

We got ready to record and George came into the recording studio and made me do voice exercises. I felt really stupid doing them ("now take the gutteral sound up an octave and say all the vowels top to bottom. ..eeeeee, iiiiiiiiiiiii, oooooooooo, uuuuuuuuu.”). He also made me stretch my jaw in various ways. It certainly would have looked goofy at a bus stop, but I have to admit, it really got me loosey goosey and ready for the mike work.

I whipped out six spots in record time and Jack effortlessly laid in the Mike Torres custom-music ("Cathouse Melee") and we wrapped at about 12:30. George treated us to lunch at his fave Westside Mexican hangout, Garcia’s. I had a chicken taco salad, George had a red sauce burrito enchilada style and I didn’t catch Mark’s dish. George paid for the whole deal, tip included. I was aghast but mighty impressed (he said he gets tired of reading about how I pay for everything).

On the way back out to Cave Creek I spun out my take on Mickey Free and how I intend to make him a graphic novel American hero. I intend to tell his story as an alternative, submerged history of the West. How he has become one of the great neglected characters of the Old West and I want to do it with nervy, jarring juxtapositions—old newspaper articles, popular misconceptions of Apaches and Mexicans, autobiographical fragments, short biographies of the famous—punctuating deceptively flat sagas of ordinary fictional types on the margins of great events, driven by the blind force of history across blighted human landscapes.”

If this sounds like a poached description from the pages of The New Yorker, that’s because it is. A feature on the writer Dos Passos and his relationship with Ernest Hemingway during the Spanish Civil War (October 31st issue) inspired me and I copied the above paragraph describing his book “U.S.A.” and cannibalized it for my own use here.

"As you get older it is harder to have heroes, but it is sort of necessary."
—Ernest Hemingway

Bob Boze 3:59 PM

November 17, 2005
So far so good on my Get-Out-of-My-Comfort-Zone plan. I have done six drawings a day, everyday, all this week, and I have gotten into the office an hour earlier, and I am sticking to my worklist with some regularity.

As for the ‘49 Ford, Eric came by on Tuesday morning, shot some ether in the carburetor and it started right up. I got this bit of good advice this morning:

Dear Bob,
I was telling my husband about your problems with your '49 Ford, and he says he knows what your problem is. You need to change the fuel pump pushrod. That's what activates the fuel pump. They wear down - that was a common problem with all the old V-8 Fords. Also take the carb apart and clean and set the floats, and the needle and seat valve. He also recommends putting Sta-bil or Marvel Mystery Oil in the gas tank to keep the gas from gumming up the carb, and to keep the floats from sticking, especially when you don't drive it all the time. My husband also says that we didn't have these problems when gas had lead in it, and cost 19 cents a gallon.
—Lauren TWM #19

While we're in the mailbag:

"Are you related to Senator John Bell of Colorado? See attached photo."
—Elizabeth BELL

Actually, no, but I have sure started to see more of those pesky Bells showing up everywhere.

Carole Glenn told me Paul Harvey mentioned the gay Western Brokeback Mountain this morning. Esquire magazine did a review of the movie in the new issue and gave it a surprisingly positive pass (the reviewer did mention squirming a bit). They are predicting a success, especially at Oscar time.

Today’s edition of The Wall Street Journal featured quotes from me in an oped page feature written by Leo Banks. Speaking of Leo, who also wrote the LA Times Wyatt Earp piece that ran last weekend, here’s my take on the. . .

Anatomy of a “Quote”

Monday I received a very nasty Email (see November 14 posting). This is not at all unusual considering my precarious position around here and my predilection for courting controversy. However, I was somewhat irked when I saw the actual quote in the Times that precipitated the irate Email to me. Here’s the actual quote:

“True West's Bell describes Earp as a jerk. ‘But he was a brave jerk, says Bell.’ As someone once said about Wyatt, all the bullet holes were in the front, I'll give him that much."

I have never described Earp as a jerk. I have always maintained that this is my grandmother's take on him. She is the one who claimed Wyatt Earp was a jerk. I often use this personal anecdote in my speeches and after I tell the story about my grandmother calling Earp "the biggest jerk in the West," and at the end of my speech, I ask for questions, and usually someone will ask, "Well, was your grandmother right? Was Earp a jerk?" And I give my honest answer which is, I understand why she didn't like him, she was from a ranching family near Rodeo, New Mexico, who knew the actual cowboys involved in the Earp-Clanton feud. I, on the other hand discovered a human being who had good points and bad points.

I am more bugged with the LA Times and their policy of not reading the quote to me prior to publication. True, a fact checker did call me and asked me if I thought Wyatt Earp was a jerk, and my memory of the conversation is, I said, "No, I didn't say that. My grandmother did. Give me the context," and Little Miss Fact Checker declined (see archives of two weeks ago), and after three or four exchanges like this I finally said, "Well, I guess I just have to trust Leo to quote me correctly."

In Leo’s defense, I seem to remember him hammering me about the details of the "jerk" comment. Actually, here’s Leo take on it:

"in my notes i do indeed have you saying that about your grandmother ... but it sounded to me as if you agreed, with modifications ... i know your view of earp contains measures of admiration and revulsion ... in the draft i sent to the magazine, i had you saying, ‘nobody could question the sand he had’ ... a positive remark that was edited out ... not sure why ... probably because of space, or the belief that readers wouldn't know what sand meant, although i think most people could dope it out ... to me, the idea that all the bullets were in the front is admirable as well ... it suggests a guy who believes he was acting in the name of the law and had nothing to hide.... I thought that would cover the good half... but bottom line, this was my story, and if I'm wrong, blog away."

So it’s hard to be mad at Leo, who, as you can clearly see, is a straight up guy. In the scheme of things, it's a minor difference (in the quote). Unfortunately, now I own that quote until hell freezes over, which is about how long it will be before some Earp fans give me another chance at any sort of historic objectivity. It will be all to easy to dismiss my efforts by saying, "Oh, he’s anti-Earp." When in reality, I’m anti-myth.

"In the pursuit of learning, every day something is acquired."
—Lao Tzu

Bob Boze 2:51 PM

November 16, 2005
Woke up at 5:30 and didn’t want to get up, but I’m on this new kick—get out of the comfort zone! So, I fought my body chemicals and head-webs and jumped, no, make that, crawled, out of bed and out into the cold by 6:40.

Got into the office at seven, had a good meeting with George Laibe and Mark Boardman about the True West Moment scripts. Needs work, but we’re getting there.

Then went into my office and followed my "Out-of-the-Comfort-Zone" worklist to the T. Mailed off a 3-D spec assignment to Bob Steinhilber. I want him to do a three dimensional image of the Vaudeville Theatre in San Antonio, Texas. This is for the big Ben Thompson-King Fisher gunfight in 1884. Packaged up the entire assignment, complete with maps, floor plans and photographs both front and back and put it in the outgoing mail.

Fired up my computer and allowed myself to read my Email one time. No replys, no extra surfing. I forced myself to close-out of Email and start the True West Moment scripts. My goal was to rough in ten. I got five in the can and forwarded them to Meghan and Mark Boardman for feedback and editing.

Here’s a couple of the more interesting Emails I got this morning:

“Good to know that prostrate is, for you, normal. But you'll have to get off your back sometime.”
—Fred Nolan, referring to my gaff where I said my “prostrate” was fine, when it should have been my “prostate.” Ha.

My reply to him written after I finished the five scripts:
Fred,
I am such an idiot sometimes it takes my breath away. Good thing I'm on my back, so I don't pass out and kill more brain cells.
—BBB

Then I got this dialogue clarification from the movie Fargo:

"Kinda funny lookin?'"

"Well, he wasn't circumcised."

"Was he funny looking apart from that?"
—Alan Huffines, quoting the Cohen brother’s brilliant dialogue where policewoman Marge interviews two idiot hookers (“Go Bears!”), one of whom slept with Steve Buscemi’s character.

We got two Emails today that I think covers the waterfront as we used to say in Bullhead City when I was growing up:

Dear Folks,
"I am always impressed with your magazine, but the current Nov - Dec offering was particularly rewarding. It was bold to cover the history of homosexuality in the West -- a subject that, like your previous coverage of frontier religion, would have been easier to simply ignore. Even though I have no dog in this fight (I pride myself in being what your article stated as a man more interested in the practical and less in the theoretical) I thank you for writing about the West as it was, and not necessarily just the parts that are comfortable to your readers. I am subscribing to help balance out the indignant cancellations you’ll probably get.”
—Jason J., Traer Iowa

Here’s the second Email:
“Have you lost your top knot? First an issue dedicated to western fashion, then the Jesus thing, and finally ‘Homos on the Range’?? It's as if your goal is to become the drugstore cowboy's Cosmopolitan. Not to be sexist, but hiring attractive young women does not guarantee sales. You should hire pros with a track record and a passion for the old west. Instead you hire Abercrombie-ites. I half expect next month's edition to include something like: What your horse is really thinking when he says neigh. C'mon Boze, Cowboy up! I don't want to see you go the way of the old west. Come Back, True West!"
—Dave V., Pittsburgh, PA

I had a book signing at the Poisoned Pen Bookstore in downtown Phoenix at noon today. Drove down into the Beast (took an hour) and joined Jana Bommersbach at the Bentley Project, a hip old warehouse that has been refurbished and—hip-mobile-ized. Hard to believe this downtown slum (two blocks south of Bank One Ballpark and the railroad tracks) could be made into anything other than a meth lab. So hip, so cool. Jana and I spoke together about our Crown book, “Amazing Tails of the West”, and we were like a WWA-tag-team-comedy-duo. She was totally blue state and I was somewhere south of the red states (where sarcasm and juvenile humor is the currency), and, well, they loved us. Several people asked how long we had been performing together. Ha. We sold every single book the owner had. I guess we better get busy on our joint wild woman book, eh?

On the way back out to Cave Creek, I stopped at Ed Mell’s studio to look at some of his new paintings. Saw the Bull Canyon-Backside of the Hualapais study and the Cave Creek Horses piece he created from the deck of my crow’s nest. Sweet. Dan O’Neil from Prescott was there. He asked me what a blog is. I thought to myself, "Prescott, yes, that’s where I want to be. Where they don’t know what a blog is, yet."

Speaking of blogs, I got a call from Jim Hinkley from Kingman when I got back to the office. You know, the guy who co-wrote the Auto book I quoted from last week? After we talked about all things Route 66 and Kingman (his wife is a Hood, as in Hood’s Market where I used to buy grape fireballs and Nesbitt orange pops and sit out on the wooden steps in the summer time and listen to the airpad cooler banging away crazily in the back of the store), I asked him how he found me. Jim said a guy in Australia who makes plastic sleeves for DeSoto hood ornaments, read the blog, wrote to his co-writer John, in California, who owns a 1950 DeSoto, who then forwarded the website to John in Kingman, and so he called me on the phone.

Is that small enough for ya? Huh? Punk? You bloggin’ to me, Prescott dude?

"We’re all pretty damned stupid, just on different subjects."
—Will Rogers (paraphrased)

Bob Boze 5:00 PM

November 15, 2005
What started as a trickle has ended up to be a torrent of questions about the Old West coming in over the transom and the internet. Here's just one of them I got in this morning. it's a fax from the True Grit Cafe in Ourray, Colorado:

"In the Old West you always hear references to whiskey, rye or gin and often the so-called ‘Red Eye,’ ‘Who Hit John’ and ‘Corn Squeezins’ but rarely hear a brand name mentioned. Although, bourbon was fairly well named by 1840 you rarely hear it referred to in western writing or movies. A drink is always ordered from a bar keep as whiskey, rye or gin. Can you shed some light on this aspect of western history?"
—Dale Tuttle, True West Maniac #1060

I am busy trying to answer all of these inquiries (this is a good thing) and trying to convert them into scripts for the next batch of True West Moments.

I had a doctor’s appointment at 11:45 AM to go over my blood work reports. Liver: normal. Thyroid: normal. Prostrate: normal. Iron: normal. Cholesterol: not good. Level is at 234 (better than last year’s 263, but not good enough. Should be below 200). So Lisa C. gave me a month’s worth of Lipitor. "Watch for liver damage and muscle spasms." Oh, great. Dodge one bullet, catch another one between the eyes.

I read a good piece on the actor Steve Buscemi in The New Yorker last night. Very inspiring. Here's this gangly Long Island kid, too skinny, bad teeth. "Kinda funny lookin'" as the hooker in Fargo described him, and yet, the little Bastard has a thriving movie career, because of all of that pathos and perceived ugliness. And I thought he was over the top great in Fargo. Just brilliant. He just finished directing his fourth or fifth episode of The Sopranos for the next season. By the way, the rumor is that Tony gets whacked early on, but I'm betting he somehow, some way survives, because there ain't no show without the fat man with the funny morals.

"When an actor comes to me and wants to discuss his character, I say, 'It's in the script.' If he says, 'But what's my motivation?," I say, 'Your salary.'"
—Alfred Hitchcock

Bob Boze 2:43 PM

November 14, 2005
Still can’t start the ‘49. Tried and tried all weekend. Finally called Eric this morning and he’s meeting me out at the house in an hour to get the job done. Evidently, I need to hire a live-in mechanic to keep the John Deere and the ‘49 in shape. Or give them to someone who can.

Deena, Kathy and I went to a quail release yesterday morning at ten. A woman who lives nearby nurses quail back to health and then releases them into the wilds about this time of year. She had about 150 in an aviary and we watched as she opened the door and stepped away. It was quite fascinating to watch who went out first (mostly females she told us) and then how afraid some were and stayed in the back of the wire cage, afraid of freedom, afraid to fly out the open door. So instructive and typical of human behavior. She literally had to go in and physically push some out the door. All the while, they are fighting her, squawking and flailing at the wire mesh. How many times and in how many ways do we do the same thing? Too many is my guess.

Got a new poll up. Which non-western movie was the most western? Cast your vote!

A clockwork Orange

Casino

Das Boot

Death Wish

Dirty Harry

Dracula

Flashdance

Goodfellas

Jaws

Midnight Express

Star Wars

The Godfather

Zulu

“If I have ever made any valuable discoveries, it has been owing more to patient attention than to any other talent.”
—Sir Isaac Newton

Bob Boze 8:36 AM

November 13, 2005
Well, evidently the LA Times piece came out because I got this Email this morning:

"Yo Bell..you are quoted in the Los Times Magazine today by Leo Banks as saying 'Earp was a jerk.' Listen to me , you f--king asshole, you and your unknown mother are the jerks...My last purchase of your products occurred last month. The beginning of a boycott effort begins today. F--k off rectum....”

"Rectum? Damn near killed ‘em!”
—Old Zane Brother Saying

Bob Boze 8:14 AM

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