August 2011 Blog Posts (60)

August 31, 2011

   Our latest issue features John Wayne on the cover standing over a downed alien craft with the question, "Cowboys & Aliens: Would the Duke Approve?"

   The movie has failed to perform and sits at a little over $107 mil, and even though that sound slike a lot, the movie had a reported budget of $160 mil. So it's not what they envisioned. You'll notice that all ads and promotion have stopped.

   In my editorial, I…

August 31, 2011

   My bachelor days are coming to an end tomorrow evening. After ten weeks abroad, my fave broad is coming home from Germany.

   Note to self: clean the house. Ha.

   Last Saturday morning we met Al Harper, the owner and CEO of the Durango-Silverton Narrow Guage Railroad at the Durango depot and presented him with a blow up of our March 2010 cover story on how Hollywood saved the railroad with the filming of the movie…

August 30, 2011

   Hot, busy, hot, busy. We still are hitting 104 every day with little relief in sight. Finished a painting this morning for The Day of the Dead Show at Due West Gallery in Santa Fe. This is called "Death Stood Behind Him." Recognize that lanky Bastard in the back? Ha.

 …

Read this in a news paper in the U.K.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2031497/Pamplona--rodeo-style-Wild-West-Running-Bulls-held-Arizona-town.html

August 29,2011

   I've always kind of avoided Monument Valley because, well, for locals like me, it's a cliche. It's like going to San Francisco and visiting Alcatraz (done it), or New York and going up in the Empire State Building (done it), or, going to San Diego and staying on Mission Beach (I'm a Zonie, had to do it). So, when we decided to go tape a True West Moment in John Ford Land last Thursday I knew we had to do it but I was kind of dreading it in a…

Rare find discovered amid town's Old West kitsch

(News Story Link)

Excerpt:

VIRGINIA CITY, Mont. (AP) — The Gypsy sat for decades in a restaurant amid the Old West kitsch that fills this former gold rush town, her unblinking gaze greeting the tourists who shuffled in from the creaking wooden sidewalk…

August 28, 2011

   Home from Durango. Wrote up this email to my family:

Los Famdamos,

   So the two Toms scared the Bejeesus out of each other on Saturday night. Tom Bell and Pattarapan were staying at our house while I was gone and they went up to the store and while they were gone my neighbor Tom Augherton came up the hill, saw the garage door open, beer bottles on the ground in the front yard, discarded bathing suits by the pool along with a…

A treasure trove of early American movies has been discovered in New Zealand. Of the 75 titles identified for preservation, more than 90 percent are thought to survive nowhere else.

To the left here appears Victor McLaglen in the trailer for the 1929 film Strong…

August 26, 2011

   We covered the dog yesterday. Got up the hill to Prescott, arriving on Whiskey Row at about 8:30 and set up our camera equipment in the legendary Palace Saloon and taped several versions describing the barroom brawl which was filmed there in 1971 for Junior Bonner, starring Steve McQueen.

   Finished at 11, had lunch, then broke down and headed for the Navajo res, via Ashfork, Flag and Tuba City. Hit rain at Williams, spectacular…

Refer to the Discussion Forum entitled "John Wesley Hardin's Colt Model 1877 "Thunderer" In that discussion, a Firearm Photo listed in Old West Firearms Collectors was previously sold at auction for One Hundred Thousand Dollars. A hundred grand sound like a lot of loot? Firearms with documented history (especially of famous or infamous characters) are very valuable…

This is getting interesting.  In addition to the aforementioned Hatfields and McCoys and Gateway -- NBC have ordered a pilot script from the producers of the high school football show Friday Night Lights.  The title of that one was not mentioned.  However ...  

The article (below) also mentions other TV western projects, coming our way.  Including AMC's Hell on Wheels, a show about the building of the Union Pacific Railroad in the 1860's, A&E's…

August 24, 2011

   Here it is, hot off the airways, this morning's promo for our True West Moment Historic Dinners at Cartwright's next door. Sorry, but tonight's dinner is sold out.

True West Moments Dinner

"Well, I guess he can't walk on water."

—BBB, pulling a John Wayne story out of his rectum when ambushed by the…

August 24, 2011

   Here it is, hot off the airways, this morning's promo for our True West Moment Historic Dinners at Cartwright's next door. Sorry, but tonight's dinner is sold out.

True West Moments Dinner

"Well, I guess he can't walk on water."

—BBB, pulling a John Wayne story out of his rectum when ambushed by the…

August 24, 2011

  Drove down into the Beast this morning to appear on Channel 3's Good Morning Arizona show. We did a live segment at 9:45 a.m. on our sold-out dinner tonight at Cartwright's combining history with historical dinners. The chef Montez brought the authentic food and I brought the mouth. Got some zingers in, flubbed a couple things, could have been better, but hey, it's live TV.

   As I mentioned yesterday, I finished several pieces while…

Official Trailer--Mateo Gil's new western Blackthorn--Sam Shepard as the legendary Butch Cassidy in his "final"…

Wanna read a good western? Do you like rifles, or horses? Get ready to pick a book by its DNA.

Newborn booklamp.org maps the genome of a novel or non-fiction book. For example, type western author Johhny Boggs in the web site's Search field, then view the DNA that pervades his book.

As this book genome project grows, this could become seductive to readers & writers alike. Story, author, editor, publisher, & reader,…

August 23, 2011

   Went home for lunch and cleaned the studio while I waited for the plumber. Our hot water heater went out and it took me a week to realize it because when you turn the water on, any water, it comes out warm. Ha.

   Hoped it would be a simple fix but it was hopeless and I had to buy a new one, so while he hauled out the old one and brought in the new one, I retired to the studio and grabbed about five paintings out of my Failure Pile.…

August 23, 2011

   John Langellier is doing a piece on Frederic Remington in Arizona Territory in 1888. Someone, I think it was a friend of Paul Hutton's—Brian Dippe, perhaps, sent me a washed out photo of Remington on horseback getting ready to go out on patrol. It's hard to see the detail, but he appears to be wearing his legendary pith helmet.

 …

August 22, 2011

  Went home for lunch and finished two more Doc enraged images. As I mentioned, I had five going this weekend. This is another take on Doc's lunge at Tom McLaury. This one includes Doc's best bud, Wyatt, looking over at the good doctor with a truly "Oh, shit," expression.

 …

August 22, 2011

  Worked all weekend on Doc in a rage paintings. Had five different images going on Saturday, tried to finish at least one of them on Sunday but didn't make it. I was stuck, bigtime. Got up this morning at five and went for a brisk walk up Old Stage Road. Cleared out my head, got the blood going, came back and bailed into "The Lunge," which is my take on the opening of the OK gunfight. By the time Doc got down to where the cowboys were standing, he was…