Posts: 3

1. Last Licks

   11.Dec.07, 20:33 EST
   
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   This is the second of the Bubba and Cletus adventure stories, written shortly after I read about a state trooper stopping a car only to find that the driver was a chimp.  The car's owner was present but too drunk to drive.  I thought that was funny, decided to write a story where a chimp led state troopers on a high speed chase.  Someone had told me about this rodeo clown act featuring a funny chimp, and that just fit right in with my story plans.  And so I devised L.B., a zany chimp Bubba owned back in the old days.
   
   The story also is about one of our old rodeo budies from Oklahoma, Slick Siphert.  Slick is definitely one of your good old boy types, and he's good for some good belly laughs.  The story has no real point to make, no deep underlying theme, but it does point out that the human bond with animals is an important one.  We can learn a lot about life from our animal friends . . . if we just keep our eyes and minds open to them.  This story has a bit of a sad ending because L.B. dies, but death is a part of life, even when it involves the death of an animal we have cared deeply about.
   
   Of all the stories I've written, Last Licks may well be the most humorous.  I had good stuff to work with on this one, both with the chimp and with Slick Siphert . . . and even down to the town drunk who takes the ride of his life with L.B.in a hotrod Volkswagen.  You don't want to miss this one.

2. The Duck Ranch

   11.Dec.07, 13:28 EST
   
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   This is the first Bubba and Cletus story written, dating back to 1984.  I've done some serious editing on it since then, but it's the same goofy tale about two cowboy going into the duck ranching business in hopes of making a little extra money.  Bubba, the adventurous partner, gets all head up to go into the duck business, drags Cletus along with him, and sets in motion a series of hilarious events that ends with a wild ride to a big lake where they hope their ducks can escape capture.  Mallard Max is the leader of the wild herd, a flock of maverick ducks who manage to get into lots of trouble before making their way across the border to saftey in Mexico.
   
   One of the central characters in the story is a character named Sundance, a self-proclaimed witness for the Lord who works out of a halfway house in San Antonio where he administers to the poor.  Bubba and Cletus team up with him to devise a way of moving the flock to safer pastures . . . or waters, that is.  The plan doesn't work as expected, but the ducks end up escaping in the end . . . and Bubba and Cletus end up with a friend for life.
   
   The Duck Ranch will be the first story featured in Tres Cuentos, the first in a series of books called The Adventures of Bubba and Cletus. 

3. Tres Cuentos

   11.Dec.07, 12:16 EST
   
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   This is a cover for the book I'm editing at the moment.  I'm spending this entire week doing nothing but proof reading and editing, getting ready to submit a manuscript to a publisher entitled Tres Cuentos.  This book is comprised of three stories from The Adventures of Bubba and Cletus, now up to some twenty stories.  But a guy has to start somewhere, and the three stories I've chosen for the book are The Duck Ranch, First Frost, and Last Licks.  There is also a short autobiography of Cletus Duhon, explaining how I came about, and an introduction called Life on the D&R Ranch.
   
   The cover I'm seriously considering using features an oak standing in a field of bluebonnets, a familiar sight down here in the hill country come springtime.  The cover has other symbolic things, the crossed arrows symbolizing the relationship between Bubba and myself . . . overlapping but pointed in opposite directions.  The horseshoe with the Texas star inside is our ranch symbol, and the triangle simple represent the three points, or stories in the book.