Marlboro Man

July 20, 2008 Craig Johnson comes as advertised. Standing outside the Autry National Center on a boiling summer afternoon, the Wyoming-based crime novelist is decked out in a long-sleeve shirt made of heavy cotton, scuffed brown boots and a 10-gallon hat...

In place of a badge he wears a plastic-coated ID card, and instead of a gun he packs a clipboard and a disposable pen. But Jeffrey Conn, slight of build and mild of manner, may just be the bravest enforcement officer in the city of Houston. That's...

James Blake Miller was in a world of pain, and I figured I should be by his side. A veterans' treatment program in West Haven, Conn. -- arguably the best in the nation -- offered hope. Moe Armstrong, a pioneer in vet-to-vet counseling, had heard of the...

It's Rose Cameron's first visit to Hooters, but it doesn't take her more than 10 minutes to conclude that the chain's appeal to men is much more than women in skimpy tops and shorts. "This is a decompression chamber," she says, eyeing the almost-all-male...

Recipes were long a family affair. Mothers would pass down to daughters well-thumbed cookbooks, dog-eared file cards scribbled with faded ink, yellowed newspaper clippings and magazine columns folded just-so to fit snug in a squat wooden box. Today,...

It was a dream of love, and a dread of loneliness, that drew Raymond James Merrill from his comfortable home in suburban San Francisco to this industrial city in southern Brazil. Dumped by his girlfriend and approaching his 56th birthday, Merrill was...

Legend has it that Eric Clapton once checked into a hotel, was handed the registration and got to the line that asked his occupation. "Legend,'' he wrote. The front-desk clerk didn't bat an eye. There are famous people, there are people with hefty resumes...

Harley Bates is steaming. He pushes past the off-duty cop standing in front of his ranch and charges the reporter and photographer. "Get the hell off my land!" he says. "Sir, I'm a reporter … " "You're scaring people taking their pictures as they drive...

3½ stars (out of four) Besides being the best American comedy since "The 40 Year-Old Virgin," "Thank You For Smoking" is the first film in a long time with a true gift of gab. A lot of the time people actually talk fast in it. Its wisecracks actually...

Growing up in Jonancy Bottom, where coal trucks grind their gears as they rumble down from the ragged green hills, Blake Miller always believed there were only two paths for him: the coal mines or the Marine Corps. He chose the Marines, enlisting right...

TRACY — Growing up on the family ranch here, Rep. Richard W. Pombo (R-Tracy) says, he learned that "you have to work till you're done. There's nobody else to pick up the slack." It's a lesson he carried from the fields of the northern San Joaquin...

Big question: Though it garnered loads of buzz at the Toronto Film Festival, top critics prizes and a Golden Globe nom for Best Drama, "Brokeback Mountain" is still that "gay cowboy movie" to most of the public. Can director Ang Lee woo viewers and set...