The Ugly Dirty Shredded Rubber Chicken (and a Book Giveaway)

As those of you who follow my weekly postings know, last night was the Risky Whippet "concert."  I mentioned before that someone was threatening to record parts of it. They did. So I have a two minute YouTube link for you, which you will either find cool or ridiculous. Hey. It's rock and roll. Anyway, if you watch it you're bound to notice and eventually discern that that ugly yellow thing dangling from the ceiling in front of my face is a rubber chicken.

Yes, that's right--an ugly, dirty, shredded rubber chicken

So, you ask, what is an ugly, dirty, shredded rubber chicken doing dangling in front of the stage (by a chain, no less)?

No, I didn't put it there.

And neither did Billy Pratt.

And yeah, I was wondering the same thing myself. It was gross and I really wanted to take it down. I mean, how was I supposed to concentrate on my hard-spun lyrics with a ugly rubber chicken dangling in front of my face?

The bar owner knew what I was thinking. "Don't touch the chicken," he growled at me. "Ya gotta work around the chicken. All bands do."

Of course I asked what the significance of the chicken was, and was told, basically, that it was good luck.

A dirty shredded rubber chicken hung by it's neck on a chain in front of your stage signifies good luck?

Mark knew I was about to pop off so he pulled me away and told me, Look, Wendelin. Just deal with the chicken.

So we set up our gear and rocked the house and I guess the chicken worked because everything went great. I even got a round of cheers when (to my younger son's chagrin) I introduced the band as our family and identified myself as "the mom."

"Yeah, Mom!" the chicken heads at the bar shouted.

Anyway, if you want to see the two minute "sampler" on YouTube and check out the dangling chicken for yourself, here's the link.

And now onto the reason most of you have tuned in to this week's blog babblings--the Sammy Keyes and the Night of Skulls giveaway contest.

Actually, it's not a contest. I did a contest last time. This time I'm just going to make it luck-based. (Influenced, I'm afraid, by the chicken.)

As (I hope) you know, there are going to be 18 books in the Sammy Keyes series, so simply pick a number between 1-18, inclusive, and send it, along with your name and mailing address, to mail@exercisetherighttoread.org  Put NIGHT OF SKULLS GUESS in the subject line.

This is NOT A RACE. You may send in your e-mail anytime between now and Saturday, October 8th. I'll go through the entries on Sunday the 9th and announce the answer during next week's post. I have three books to give away, so if more than three of you guess the correct number I'll either scare up more books or have a run off contest. The only hint I have about this number is that I like it. That's it.

So dangle an ugly rubber chicken in front of your face and send me a number!