Skunked, Stumped & In A Funk

 March 22, 2022

  I got skunked yesterday. Spoke to a group of about 50 women in Scottsdale and they didn't buy one book. Several took free True West magazines, but not one book sale. I was stung, of course, and all the way home I kept thinking to myself, what is the lesson to be learned here? What could I have said differently that might have changed the dynamic?

   I was stumped, skunked, and, in a funk.

   So, I got up this morning, 14 years to the day that I played "Wipeout" in Kingman, and I saw a paperback in a stack of books on the ledge by the fireplace in our bedroom and I picked it up, wondering if there was, perhaps a lesson in the first lines of the novel. Here's what it said.

   "So this is what it feels like to be hunted. My spine is pressed up against the bark of a pine tree. My heart hammers against my rib cage with astonishing force. Here they come again. Here comes the big dented old Chevy pickup with its engine roaring and its high-beam lights swinging through the darkness and the trees. The men in the truck are drunk and they have rifles and now there are other men on foot looking for me with flashlights.

   "Why? I have done nothing to them. I pose no threat. Nor do the men imagine that I pose a threat. They are hunting me because I'm a stranger in their territory and the nearest law is three hours away over a potholed and bandit-infested road and because they are the type of men who pride themselves on their willingness to kill."

—Richard Grant, in the prologue to "God's Middle Finger"

   That is a damn fine piece of writing. Inspiring, compelling and a joy to read. Being skunked is par for the course and just one of the bumps in the road. After all is said and done, I am just damn happy to be here.

Daily Scatchboard Whip Out: "Badges?"

Special Bonus Whip Out

Daily Whip Out: "When The Fist Is Near"

"When the law is far, the fist is near."

—Old Vaquero Saying