Fun5

www.blackhorsewesterns.org

Cowboy Bob's Trading Post #5

Ron: hot book on menu.	Veteran BHW novelists with hundreds of titles to their collective credit were eaten up with envy when newcomer Ronald McDonald, aka for more than usually obvious reasons as Lee Pierce, reported he'd helped boost his first book, *Armstrong's War, a Hale release in September, to almost instant-sellout status. Born and raised in Fort Worth, Texas, Ron also writes non-fiction, song lyrics and poetry, has been reading westerns for 47 years . . . and owns (what else with a name like his?) a restaurant — La Fiesta Grande, in Farmington, New Mexico. "My customers are clamouring for autographed copies of the book," Ron said. "Many are not western readers. I think this is a great way to introduce them to BHWs." Within a month, he had bought up the last 95 copies of Armstrong's War* in stock at the publisher's warehouse in Kent, England, and was shipping them into his kitchen along with the maize flour, beef, chicken and beans.

Line for Brad in western.	The call went out for extras at the Winnipeg Convention Centre for the Warner Bros. movie *The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford. Long title? Not as long as the line of hopefuls that stretched out the front doors, around the corner and up the street all day. Leeanne Muldoon, unit publicist for the movie, said more than 2000 people turned up for the casting call. She wasn’t surprised by the numbers. "We had a similar reaction in Calgary and Edmonton. It’s a western … people really enjoy westerns and we get some of our largest crowds for westerns." The movie's star, Brad Pitt*, was an added attraction.

TV's best shot.	Westerns are tops on television as well as at the movies. Fifty years have passed since the debut of *Gunsmoke, but it remains the longest-running prime-time drama in television history. Other westerns had beaten James Arness's* Marshal Matt Dillon and company to the small screen — *Hopalong Cassidy* and *The Lone Ranger* had entertained kids on TV since 1949. But *Gunsmoke, based on an earlier radio series, was the medium's first adult western. It lasted 20 seasons, running until its cancellation in 1975. No other scripted prime-time show has survived that long. The closest challenger is The Simpsons*, in its 17th season this year.

Yarn spinner Laura Ingalls Wilder.	As an expression, "the wild and woolly west" remains a baffler. But BHW author Gillian F. Taylor tells us wool was in common use in the Old West, as it was warm and hardwearing. "Some people would have spun their own, but mostly it was bought in lengths from dry goods stores, like cotton and other fabrics. Most winter garments — dresses, coats, shirts, pullovers, socks — were woollen. The 'Little House' books by Laura Ingalls Wilder are a goldmine of information on domestic details. Look for the later titles: *The Long Winter, Little Town on the Prairie* and *These Happy, Golden Years*. They have first-hand accounts of clothes, social trends, farming, cookery, schools, Fourth of July celebrations, songs and sayings of the time — and the attitudes of the time."

Definitely not Howard's end.	Back in the centuries when Native Americans were still Indians, many of them fought shy of going before the camera. It was said they believed photography would shorten their lives, because their souls in the future world would be that much smaller. Author Howard Hopkins (aka Lance Howard) might have been the man to reassure them. He replied to a present-day contention that a desire to be a published writer was sad, by pointing out that a printed record, in this case of words rather than image, was a trail to immortality of a kind. "Long after we have left this world, some person decades from now may pick up an old copy of a BHW and say 'I wonder who this author was?' or 'Man, I really like that story' and we live on. Is that so sad?"

	The Yucca Valley, California, newspaper Hi-Desert Star reported that a western re-eneactment group, Gunfighters for Hire, gave live performances — complete with cowboys, bad guys, a town drunk and (of course) a saloon floozy — in Pioneertown on Sunday afternoons in October. Members of the non-profit troupe were careful to draw distinctions between Hollywood westerns and the reality of life in the South-west in the late 1800s. For example, work pants didn't have belt loops, while despite modern-day cowboys' penchant for curling the sides of their hats, historic accounts and photos indicate wide-brim hats were worn flat for better protection against the sun.

Syd's circus act.	Roll up, roll up — the circus has come to town! One of the year's liveliest BHWs was *Savage's Trap* in which a circus added spice to a yarn about gang rule and political corruption in Sacramento. Western fans who also dip into fantasy and horror may recall the short story *The Circus* by the novel's veteran author, Sydney J. Bounds, whose professional writing career began in 1946. In 1986, the horror story was featured by the TV series *Tales from the Darkside* (a *Twilight Zone* lookalike) alongside contributions from Stephen King and Robert Bloch. Syd's TV gem has also been available on a video compilation from the series. His latest western — Syd is still going strong at the age of 85! — is *Savage's Quest*, out this month.

	Richard S. Wheeler, who won the Western Writers of America 2005 Spur award for best paperback and had a couple of titles published as early BHWs, lectured at an October writers' conference in stunningly situated Whitefish, Montana. He said writing skills were largely self-taught. "When people ask me what makes a good or even great novel, or a marketable novel, I tell them three things: story, story, and story. My idea of a great story may not be your idea of one so I won't list examples. . . . You have heard that stories must have conflict in them, but that old cliché is inadequate. . . . Really good stories involve a dilemma that tests the character of the protagonist, that challenges the beliefs of people, that probes right and wrong, good and evil. Because good stories pose dilemmas, they must also pose a resolution to the dilemma. In other words, a good novel has an ending, even if a tragic ending. . . . Great stories are magical. Here I can go no further. I can't tell you how to write great stories. I really don't know how myself."

Movie madness.	Columbia TriStar has released *Major Dundee: The Extended Version* on DVD. The movie, a 1965 cavalry western, comes with two scores: the original that director Sam Peckinpah loathed and a new one. Actor James Coburn, who played a one-armed guide, recalled Peckinpah as "a working alcoholic . . .a genius for three hours a day". Another actor remembers, "The drunken fights started every night at 11." Star Charlton Heston chased after the infuriating Peckinpah with a sabre! The director wed one of his Mexican actresses, half his age. Columbia put German actress Senta Berger into the film as eye candy and a European box-office draw. "Soon the studio discovered that Sam was a madman," she says. "And in a certain way he was." Commentators say the cautionary tale about military adventurism is eerily relevant again at the current time.

	BHW author Lance Howard discovered a helpful website for fiction writers while looking for Greek names for a comic-book proposal he was working on. He told writing friends, "I thought it might come in handy for some of you. An excellent source of names from different cultures." The URL is www.20000-names.com/index.htm.

John Wayne plays title role.	Stuck for a title? Prolific BHW author Keith Hetherington, putting the finishing touches to a Tyler Hatch novel, told us he had help from his "best mate" for *Dead Where You Stand*. "I suppose it's a backhanded tribute to The Duke inasmuch as my youngest son, Rick, a good mimic, is always taking-off John Wayne. The 'dead where you stand' phrase is a popular one with him and he said 'It's a good title for a western, Dad . . .' And there you are. Otherwise, life here is just the usual 'git along little dogie' . . . . "

	Writers adding research detail on the hoof via Google, as recommended by BHW author Mark Bannerman and others, could be caught in a crossfire. News broke in October that the 8,000-strong US Authors Guild, Herbert Mitgang — a biographer of President Lincoln — a children's book author, and a former US Poet Laureate were filing a class action in federal court in Manhattan against Google over its unauthorized scanning and copying of books. The suit alleged the $90 billion search engine and advertising juggernaut was engaging in huge copyright infringement at the expense of writers. Google had agreements with four academic libraries — those of Stanford, Harvard, Oxford and the University of Michigan — and with the New York Public Library to create digital copies of substantial parts of their collections, and to make those collections available for searching online. Google hadn't sought the approval of the authors of copyrighted works.