One day Billy-Bob Gautama was arrested for manslaughter in the death of the man who’d slapped his little sister. He went before the judge and said, “Judge, if you say I am responsible for this, are you not denying the reality of the bullet that entered Two-step Cordell? And the gun that fired the bullet? And what of Two-step? Do you think he would be treated as if he had no role, made into a passive object, his humanity negated? What also of my finger that is supposed to have squeezed the trigger? Has it not it’s own Truth, as do we all? Is one Truth to somehow override all others, and one perception of reality be declared the only wisdom? Also, judge, what is death? Are we not dying from the moment we are born, and does this process not stop only at the end of life? So then, can I be culpable because I stopped the process of his dying? Will you also arrest doctors? And besides, he needed killing.” In this way, the charges against Billy-Bob were dropped and the judge was Enlightened.
You know, you should bundle these pearls of wisdom up in a book under the pen name of Billy-Bob Gautama and sell them at tourist places around your adopted state.
Hee hee! Interesting thought. I wonder how many I’ll need to make a chapbook.
Get a pencil illustrator and prob around 38 more.
You could call it Tex-Zen: The Tao of Gautama.
This one reminded me of the movie Road House. Allegedly inspired by a man that needed killing so bad none of the 30 or so witnesses saw anything.
Asimov got away with using something like 50 or 100 limericks per book. Maybe it was less, its been a long time since I saw those.
I remember that movie. It’s set in the Alternate World of Quentin Terentino–the one where there are no police. But Sam Elliott almost saved it.
Makes me think of an old book by H. Beam Piper called “Lone Star Planet”
Many of Piper’s books are now in the public domain. I guess no one had an interest in renewing the copyrights after he killed himself. Lone Star Planet is available at Project Gutenberg.
In Road House Sam was really a deputy. The head bouncer was the sheriff, the girl friend was called Doc. Roger Ebert thought it was a western in disguise and I have to agree. Police, as such, had no place in it.
And I hadn’t noticed that about Tarentino. Thank you.
And for all those books you write.
If ya can’t dazzle em with brilliance, baffle em with bulls**t…
Luved Roadhouse, appealed real well to my inner Billy-Bawb, seen it dozens of times. Sam/Wayde Garrett : “Maybe she’ll have brains enough for both of ya”.
Lucky I wasn’t the judge. There’d’ve had to be *proof* he needed killing.