Newest Book by Jim Cook
Arizona Liar's Journal
Illustrated by Jim Willoughby

Tall tales, big windies or the s-t-r-e-t-c-h-i-n-g of Arizona—whatever you call these unlikely stories, you've never heard Arizona so humorously and creatively disclosed. For the first time, these pages reveal the name of the artist that painted the Painted Desert, tell where to find the moonshine saguaro, and uncover the wording of Arizona's new Truth-in-Lying Law. These "facts" and more got caught between the covers of Jim Cook's newest book, Arizona Liar's Journal.

View article written in The Arizona Republic

Mr. Cook, the Official State Liar of Arizona, is also director of the Wickenburg Institute for Factual Diversity located beside the storied Hassayampa River. The Institute's goal is to shed the shackles of fact and expand the truth about Arizona.

This is a must book for those who are subscribers to Jim Cook's "Journal of Prevarication," a popular e-mail newsletter from the Wickenburg Institute for Factual Diversity. This title follows in the footsteps of other books by this distinguished author, also known as James E. Cook. A few of these are The Arizona Trivia Book and Dry Humor, Tales of Arizona Weather. Jim Willoughby's well-known cartoons delightfully illustrate enlightened stories of animals, plants and personalities of Arizona.

If you've been searching for the perfect holiday gift, look no further. These knee-slapping tales of Arizona's past will tickle the funny bone of everyone in your family—and your friends, too.

THE MOONSHINE SAGUARO

A story has been going around on the Internet about the exploding saguaro: "In the second such incident in the Southwest, a San Diego woman purchased a large cactus during the redecoration of her home. The huge cactus was a fitting centerpiece for her 'New Southwest' look, and she was quite happy with her $3,000 purchase...for a while.

"A few days later, she noticed that the big cactus seemed to be swaying—and humming. Bewildered and not knowing where else to turn, she dialed 9-1-1. Fortunately for her, she got an operator who knew what this un-cactuslike behavior meant.

"She was told to clear out of the house immediately-like right now!-and wait for an emergency team. The responding five-man team had just enough time to move the huge cactus into the back yard...just before it burst wide open...scattering about a thousand tarantulas in all directions.

"The nursery where she had purchased the cactus refunded her $3,000, and paid for exterminator service for the entire block...The fashion of using cacti for home decoration is fairly new, but tarantulas have been using them for mass breeding farms for a long, long time."

Balderdash. Arizonans know saguaros better than that. While it frequently is used as a symbol of the entire Southwest, it occurs naturally only in Arizona and tiny areas of California and Sonora, Mexico.

Some years back, a brainless vandal was blasting at the base of a tall saguaro with a shotgun. The cactus fell over and killed him, and we natives all said, "Serves him right."

I knew the exploding cactus story was phony, but I've been wrong before (I think it was in 1979). So I checked with Patrick Quirk, saguaro expert for the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix. He said he first heard the story in 1988, and it's absolutely false.

I said I didn't think there was any room inside a saguaro for spiders, and Quirk said, "It's about the consistency of a raw potato in there."

Now, there are some peculiar plants on the desert. This journal warned you not long ago about the Boogie bush (Meanderus adios), which gets up and moves during the night.

Experts will tell you that the cholla, or "jumping cactus," doesn't actually jump at you; that if you brush it, it wastes no time insinuating its way into your epidermis. My brother Dean swears that one time up at Roosevelt Lake, a cholla jumped him from seven feet away. When I needle him about it, he admits that there was a gale-force wind that spring day, and he was downwind of the cholla.

Dean reminded me of our other brother, Big Jake, and the moonshine saguaro. Jake is a man of the cloth today, and a preacher as well, but he was rowdy in his younger days.

One time out by Lake Pleasant he was hunting rabbits in a stand of stately saguaros when he noticed the cactus wrens and butcher birds acting peculiar. They seemed to be partying.

Jake traced the activity to one fat saguaro. The birds were sipping the sap of this big cactus, then going off to do aerobatics.

Jake took a little sip of the cactus nectar and could tell it was alcohol. It was a warm, humid summer and conditions were just right for the juice in that saguaro to ferment.

Jake couldn't figure out if it was whiskey or wine, but he said it was authoritative, with just a hint of whimsy.

He got the tap from a beer keg and stuck it into the hole the birds had made in that saguaro. Every few days he'd go out and draw off a fifth of that cactus drink.

But Jake had a big mouth, and he told all his friends about that moonshine saguaro, and they told all their friends. A couple of people got arrested for driving under the influence of cactus while they were returning from the lake.

Sheriff's deputies couldn't help but notice all the traffic. They staked out the living wine cask and busted Jake for tampering with native plants, which is strictly against the law in Arizona. He was on probation for a year, and that's when he got religion.

Now, I hope that none of my friends will go looking for another moonshine saguaro. The big cactus is endangered, and protected not only by law, but by some really wicked spines. It's much safer to go buy a good domestic wine.

This 224 page soft-cover book sells for a paltry $14.95.
ISBN 1-931725-03-9