My 10-year-old just loaded up the first 3 John Carter of Mars novels onto his kindle. Being a Star Wars fan, I figured he'd be hooked all summer long. Surprisingly, his summer reading drifted back to George Orwell so I'm hoping to get him excited with updates on the movie. Disney's "John Carter" will finally be released in March of 2012, one hundred years after being written by Edgar Rice Burroughs.

My friend Dan visits from Golden, Colorado every now and then. Inevitably, our 100% pure agave friend Don Julio joins us for a projected widescreen western. We had Sam Peckinpah's "Major Dundee" queued up this time, and now Don and Dundee are forever linked.

The 1965 film stars Charlton Heston and was purported to be the best cast ever assembled for a western and is famous for it's huge cost and box office failure. There was a contentious battle between the director and the funders during production. The '65 release was cut without the director's blessing but the 2005 extended DVD version (w/ a brand new score) restores it to agave-infused glory.