The Crybaby & The Liar

January 20, 2020
   Take note: there are three 20s in today's date.

   I hate lies but not as much as I hate liars. I have no love for cry babies, either.

Daily Whip Out: "The Crybaby"

A True Confession

   As much as I hate lies and liars, I have to come clean on something. After the truly ridiculous difficulty of finishing my Geronimo book last October I made the announcement to my friends and family that this would be my last book. It was too painful and I am too old, is how I framed it. It didn't help that the magazine business went through a violent upheaval right in the middle of the production of the book and that the twin storms took a toll on my physical and mental well being. By the end of October, I was, to say the least, beside myself and exhausted.

   Show me to the pasture, I am done.

   Fast forward to this last Thursday night at the official launch of the Geronimo book and then the big celebration in Wickenburg for my friend Ed's fifty year retrospective, when I was asked about my statement, I had to laugh. Here is my current to do list:

Sketchbook Confession, January 18, 2020

   So, as a close female friend who laughed at my quick capitulation, put it, "You are like a woman after childbirth who says, 'No more!' and then six weeks later is pregnant again!"

   Knocked up is more like it. Knocked up with a ton of projects. John McPhee calls them "Old Man Projects," and Kathy Sue calls them her "Senior Projects." For some reason I feel a little bit like Jack Crabb.

"I took a slug in the ham once near Rocky Ford and cut it out myself with a Bowie and a mirror, and the sight of my hairy behind was a real pleasure alongside of looking at what you carry on top of your neck."

—Jack Crabb, "Little Big Man" by Thomas Berger