It has been a rough few days. Lots of heartache and the forecast shows more on the way. When you release a book out into the wild you’ve got to expect that not everyone will like it. I’m prepared for that. Not everyone has to like the same thing. A cowboy friend of mine told me, “If everybody like the same thing they’d all be married to my grandma.” It would be silly to think you aren’t going to get criticized for whatever you do. And sure, he or she is entitled to their opinion, but it’s gotten to the point where people who criticize actually believe their opinion should have an effect, even if it’s only that of bird droppings hitting the driver’s side windshield at sixty miles an hour. Why is it that every single activity in our lives is subject to a mean-spirited critique? Who wants to read the thoughts of some unqualified blowhard, having convinced themselves that their uninformed opinion is somehow relevant, yarble through an insufferably long-winded, vomit-laden tirade about… Oops. I’m not saying there isn’t a place for solid, intelligent, constructive criticism. But when was the last time you read a review of something, a movie, a play, book, that wasn’t laced in venom? Most critics are spiteful cranks, heaping scorn on everything he sees, (expect for their own work) the kind of poison-tongued lard-encased jerk who refuses to review anything he enjoys because his praise mechanism was broken when his father wouldn’t buy him an E-Z Bake over for his tenth birthday. Criticism is hard for anyone to take…at first. When the mad passes you can take a look at what was said and try to change what might be valid. But ultimately you’ve got to follow your own heart no matter what and take what critics say with a fifty-pound bag of salt because at best a critic is just another human being trying to separate the artistic wheat from the Wonder Bread. And after all, I have a lot to be thankful for, with or without criticism and I try to never forget that. I’d trade all I have and everything I’m ever going to have or be if I could save my brother however. What happened was my fault. I never forget that either.
Journal Notes
No More Thunder
I saw a Seinfeld episode once where Kramer came up with an idea for a new perfume called The Beach. He was able to pitch the idea to Calvin Klein but they didn’t think much of it. A few years pass and Jerry is dating a Calvin Klein model who has done an advertisement for a new perfume called The Ocean. Kramer is outraged when he finds out about the so-called new scent. Right now I feel exactly like Kramer must have when he realized The Beach was now The Ocean. For five long years I’ve been writing about the greatest posse of all time. It was made up of Wyatt Earp, Bill Tilghman, Charlie Basset, and Bat Masterson. Howard Kazanjian and I wrote a book about it entitled Thunder Over the Prairie. The book was released in 2009 and published by Globe Pequot Press. Howard and I met with Walter Hill who liked the book and was going to write and direct the film. I found out today that a gentleman by the name of Michael Feifer is making the picture. The name of the film set to be released in March 2012 is entitled The First Ride of Wyatt Earp. I feel like I’ve been kicked in the gut. I’m happy that Dodge City will be in the public eye when this film comes out, but incredibly sad that all that work seems to have been for nothing. There’s no point in continuing to acquire the rest of the financing for the film. This one is going to hurt for a long time.
Hearts West II
Mae West once said, “Love conquers all things – except poverty and toothache.” I find it interesting that many women who came West between 1851 and 1879 felt the same way. I didn’t realize until I began doing research for Hearts West II: Mail Order Brides of the Old West, that finding love was secondary to finding a partner who could be economically supportive and father your children. Here and there in history you find a mail order bride situation where love successfully existed, but such marriages were novelties, rare enough to become fodder for romantic novels and books entitled Hearts West II: Mail Order Brides of the Old West. It was a business deal – at least that’s how the majority of those relationships started out. There was a close connection between marriage and the price of wheat, beef, pork, beans, corn and other thing which go to make up the main portion of human food during that time as well. According to the Ladies’ Home Journal in November 1876, “as the price of those commodities go up the number of marriages goes down.” Mail order bride or not, cupid didn’t have to work as hard during times of prosperity. How romantic. Not! But I guess that was the whole idea. Marriage then was not based on how “in love” you both were, but on supporting one another in a variety of ways and aiding the continuing of the species. If you’d lost that loving feeling for your spouse in the Old West it didn’t make much difference – that wasn’t why you entered into the union in the first place. Infidelity was high during that period too and acceptable. You married the one you could make the best business deal with and fell in love with someone else. Sounds like a line from the movie Arthur. “Arthur, marry Susan for her millions and have an affair with the nobody,” his grandmother told him. Marriages were much more difficult to get out of in those old days. Perhaps they were so frightened of the vows they didn‘t dare go against them. They are pretty scary. I mean, “We are gathered here to witness the joining of two people…” Joining. Could we come up with a slightly more industrial term, huh? How about, “soldering”? Yeah, have a couple of guys from the machinist union swing by, drop the welder’s masks, and handle that part of the ceremony. You know, it seems like the only two times they pronounce you anything in life is when they pronounce you “man and wife” or “dead on arrival.” To some those two pronoucements are one in the same.
Belknap's Lies
On April 25, 1876, George Custer wrote Elizabeth from New York with bad news. He was caught up in a situation neither saw coming. “My Precious Sunbeam,” his letter began, “I cannot express my amazement, disappointment. I am stopped, ordered to return to Washington. I had obtained my formal discharge…. I had had several interviews with the Managers of the Belknap Board, representing the urgency of my duties at Fort Lincoln, and had finally received a reluctant consent to my departure. Yesterday a Deputy Sergeant-at-Arms of the Senate brought me a summons to appear before that body on Wednesday next, as witness in the Impeachment of the Ex-Secretary of War.” Belknap was a dishonest man. He had ripped off the government and Custer knew what he had done. Belknap lied about Custer and no one was in George’s corner except Elizabeth. It would take a while for the truth to come out, but in the meantime and George and Elizabeth would suffer. President Grant had appointed Belknap to the post of Secretary of War and refused to believe he would lie about anything. He was wrong. George still paid. Truth never dies, but lives a wretched life. Elizabeth and her husband learned that firsthand, and by the way, so has my brother. The truth in his case is about to come out too. I’ve waited such a long time for this. I’ve got new changes coming to my website in the fall that I’m excited about. If all goes well, one of the new items I’ll be adding to the site will be a western short to promote the books. I’ve always wanted to make a western movie and I think this is the closest I’ll ever come to it. It’s been a dream of mine as far back as I can remember. I’d die happy just knowing I was able to participate in such a project.
Shakespeare & Sam Sixkiller
For several months I’ve been working on a book about an Oklahoma lawman named Sam Sixkiller. He was a fine officer, dedicated, fearless – he kept order in a town that was considered one of the most dangerous in the country at the time. Some of the men he arrested conspired against him – they wanted to kill him. On Christmas Day in 1886 two gunmen opened fire on Sixkiller as he was leaving a store. Sixkiller’s son was in law enforcement at the time his father was killed and wanted to get revenge on the four who planned his death. Friends and family tried to talk Sam Jr. into letting the matter go. They believed the villains who took Sixkiller’s life were too powerful and that public sentiment would be on their side. Sam Jr. responded to the well meaning people around him with a quote from one of Shakespeare’s plays. He said, “And where the offense is, let the great axe fall.” Sam Jr. was as brave as his father. An eye for an eye seemed to work in the Old West. So often I wish I could go back in time to that place. I don’t know if frontier justice helped Sam Jr. deal with the death of his father easier, but I suspect it helped to know that after he got the job done, the bad guys could never hurt anyone else again. “How did I plan this moment?” Sam Jr., asked the question on the villain’s mind as he leveled their guns at them. It took years to track the killers down – so long in fact they assumed there would be no repercussions for their actions. “How did I plan this moment? With pleasure!” Sam Jr. told them before he sent them to meet their maker. One of the men did not die instantly. Sam Jr. stepped over the dead bodies laying about the hotel room where they had gathered and looked down at the outlaw on the floor, grimacing in pain. “I want to be free of you…the way you, obviously, are free of me,” Sam Jr. said before shooting the man in the head. I wonder if that did set him free? After speaking to my brother again last night about the health issues he’s struggling with I wonder the same about myself. I want to be free of the people who hurt Rick…the way they, obviously, are free of us. I don’t believe I will ever be.
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Smoking Cowboys
Rolling your own cigarette and smoking was a just a given for the tough lawmen and notorious bad guys of the Old West movies. John Wayne and Clint Eastwood made it look cool, but in my estimation that’s the only place it does look cool. I grew up around a family of smokers. That wonderful legacy was then passed on to my brothers and now my brother’s daughters. Plant a potato get a potato I guess. I don’t blame the film stars for setting the example or the tobacco company for making the product. I personally think tobacco companies are being sued way too much. I admit they’re evil poison-mongers who give other evil poison-mongers a bad name. Yes, they lie about the addictive nature of their products and get rich doing it. But come on, tell the truth, we knew they were lying all along. If you’re saying you didn’t know cigarettes were bad for you, you’re lying through that hole in your trachea. Of course it causes lung cancer. Of course it causes emphysema. IT’S SMOKE! How could you not know smoking is bad for you? Is having teeth the color of caramel corn normal? Is coughing up your lungs one smoldering loogie at a time normal? Here are some signs that you might want to quit smoking: 1. Before lighting up, you wrap a nicotine patch around your cigarette. 2. Your newborn twin sons are named Benson and Hedges. 3. You name each cigarette and have a personal conversation with it while you smoke. 4. You’re at Arlington Cemetery, paying your respects to JFK, and you lean over and light one up off the eternal flame. When I find myself in a room where everyone is smoking, and it gets too intense, you know what I do? I leave the room. My acceptance of smokers is one of the compromise, one of the little negotiations that one must make if one is to live in modern urban society. I agree that John Wayne would have seemed less cool in The Quiet Man or McClintok if he weren’t smoking, but I also agree he would have been around longer if he hadn’t of smoked. Ultimately lung cancer was the only thing that could ever kick the Duke’s butt. And as a fan of the Duke – that’s just sad.
Couldn't Have Said it Better Myself
Another rainy, melancholy day in Northern California. Guess the Libbie Custer book is doing okay. I haven’t heard any complaints. But I remain optomistic as far as that’s concerned. I’m working on the Sam Sixkiller book and the following up to Hearts West. My mind wanders while I’m working to some of the best dialogue in western films. Some of the lines are just that, but others are things I wish I could say. If only was living in the Old West and had the privilege. These lines are from High Plains Drifter, Breakheart Pass, Open Range, the Outlaw Josie Wales, and my favorite, the Unforgiven.
“You a bounty hunter?”
“Man’s gotta do something for a livin’ these days.”
“Dyin’ ain’t much of a livin, boy…”
* * *
“I always heard there was three kinds of suns in Kansas: sunshine, sunflowers and… sons of bitches.”
* * *
“You promised.”
“When a man is a killer, arsonist, cheat and a coward, it’s hardly surprising if he turns out to be a liar, as well.”
* * *
“Be careful… you’re a man who makes people afraid, and that’s dangerous.”
“Well, it’s what people know about themselves inside that makes’em afraid.”
* * *
“It’s a hell of a thing, killin’ a man. Take away all he’s got, and all he’s ever gunna have.”
* * *
“You may not know this but… there’s things that gnaw at a man worse than dyin.”
* * *
“We come for justice, not vengeance. Now them’s two different things.”
“Not today they ain’t.”
My feeling exactly, Mr. Costner. Like I said, if only this were the Old Wes.
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Marshals & Victims
While acts of violence against employers by ex-employees is tragic, it is not new. For example, on April 17, 1881, a drunken Bill Johnson attempted to assassinate city marshal Dallas Stoudenmire with a shotgun in El Paso, TX. Johnson’s blast missed completely because he was stewed as an owl. Stoudenmire and his brother-in-law, Doc Cummings, returned fire hitting Johnson eight times. He died on the spot. Johnson was former marshal Stoudenmire’s deputy. He was sore about the rough treatment he got when Stoudenmire fired him and took away his keys to the jail. I think it’s natural to wonder what motivates an individual to act in this manner. You can’t help trying to noodle it through. There’s no excuse for it, but those that feel harshly persecuted act irrationally. The mind is a fragile thing and people behave badly. Some are just crazy and others are just evil. The kind of evil the main character in the movie the Bad Seed displayed. The kind of evil that pretends they’re the victim. I know plenty of really bad people who have gone to great extreme to show themselves as victims. Somewhere along the line society took the wrong fork in the blame road and decided to give these nut jobs (who are no different than Johnson) the attention they so desperately longed for in the first place. If I were U.S. Marshal Sam Sixkiller, the great lawman I’m writing about who died in 1886, you could put those so-called victims down and go across the street for a cup of Joe. Much as I wish it were at times life isn’t an Eastwood picture. Over the last seven years it’s more like Planet of the Apes and I’m Heston walking up in the field and seeing the chimp on top of the pony.
Talks with a Cowboy & Judge Parker Justice
How can a day be anything but great when you start it out having a conversation with an honest to goodness cowboy? Brent Harris, a true Dodge City, Kansas cowboy, has been a real lifesaver in his efforts to make the launch of the Elizabeth Custer book next month in Dodge go as smoothly as possible. Author Dave McCumber once wrote, “Cowboys are heroes, but not of the Hollywood variety. Their heroism comes in small portions. John Wayne may have saved the stampeding heard in Red River, but in real life the herd is saved one calf at a time.” Thanks, Brent. The first bit of feedback I’ve received about the Elizabeth Custer book has been positive. I don’t think the happiness that response leaves me with will continue however. I keep waiting for someone to come along and bash me with a bad review. I feel like Robert Duvall’s character in Tender Mercies. I don’t trust happiness much. Never have. Never will. No matter what goes on, my thoughts are always drawn back to my brother. You think your heart would drown in the sadness of it all, but it keeps right on going. It doesn’t kill you. I wish it would. Until then, I’ll keep working on the Sam Sixkiller book. He was one of the toughest lawman I’ve ever had the pleasure to write about. He didn’t take grief from anyone and that fact made him one of Judge Isaac Parker’s favorite Deputy US Marshalls. Judge Parker was known as the Hanging Judge. He once hung eight convicted felons at the same time. In his zeal to rid the Indian territory of outlaws he worked continually to keep order and send a message to future offenders. Parker died at the age of 57 from exhaustion and complications from diabetes. Too bad he’s not around today. I’ve know a few criminals I’d like to see in his court. Capitol punishment may not wholly work as a deterrent for future bad guys, but it sure made a lasting impression on the offenders the Judge sentenced to die for their misdeeds. They had it coming…so many do.
Anna Grace & Libbie's Release
This is the week! The week the Elizabeth Custer book is officially released. I want it to do well, but it’s like sending your child out into the world to possibly be ridiculed, or worse yet, told they’re ugly and of no value. The situation reminds me of a time in my life when I personally believed I was ugly and had no value. Years from now I might be able to speak about the circumstances a bit more in depth, but for now I’ll simply note that at that time I struggled with the notion of taking my own life. I probably would have if not for the kindness and influence of a few strong women in my sphere of influence, one of which oddly enough was my ex mother-in-law. She paid attention to me, was interested in the things I was interested in, she helped me do my laundry, gave me a beautiful dress, and was generally decent. She seemed to see something in me I didn’t at the time and it gave me hope. Without being too overly dramatic, I believe God sent an angel to help get me through to the next station in life. I loved and admired her and although I am no longer a part of her family, the good she did influences me today. It would be nice to see her again and tell her face to face what an impact she had. For that reason alone I do not regret my first marriage. I’ll never forget how she helped stand me on my feet again. Hope the experience of knowing me wasn’t a totally loss for her. I guess that’s what I hope for readers of the Custer book – that it’s not a totally loss for them. If it is I don’t think I want to know. My ex mother-in-law isn’t around to help make it all better. Which would be a little weird now – not to mention hard to explain. Anyway, happy reading.
