Good-Bye Rum Bum, Hello Pinky
I know I’ve mentioned here a few times the motorcycle writing I’ve been doing for Rum Bum since September of 2009. Well, yesterday saw publication of my final piece at Rum Bum. Not because I’m leaving them, but because Rum Bum is shutting down operations. Presumably the website will stay up, and all the pieces I’ve written for them will remain accessible, but it will, as my editor said, be like an abandoned garden.
Perhaps, for me at least, it was time. Starting out I committed to doing two pieces a week for them, one a personal column and the other an article of some sort, a profile, interview, feature, whatever. Now, coming up with more than 100 topics a year, year after year, is a bit tough, especially if you have to have the idea approved by your editor first. I do more than that on Examiner, but I can choose whatever I want to write about on Examiner. And for the columns on Rum Bum I could choose, too. But the articles required Lauren’s OK.
By the middle of this summer I was running out of ideas. In September I told Lauren I could only come up with an article every other week, but I’d continue doing the column weekly. But then even that got harder to do and I wondered how long I’d be able to keep it up.
And then I got the message from Lauren that the whole thing was coming to an end.
I never really understood the deal with Rum Bum. They seem to have some connection with Rum Bum Racing, and seemed to be an attempt to build the Rum Bum brand, but beyond that I never understood their purpose. Or their funding, which now appears to have run out. What I did understand was that I got paid regularly and their checks did not bounce.
So one door closes and another opens. Writing for Examiner I have become acquainted with Mary Baker, aka “Pinky,” who writes as the Shreveport Motorcycle Travel Examiner. Last week I got a note from Mary announcing that she is starting a new motorcycle magazine, Pinky’s Motorcycle Passion, and asking me if I’d like to be a regular writer. Of course I said yes. The first issue is expected to be out in February or March.
I have a few more possibilities shaping up–maybe–and I’ll announce them when and if they happen. As we all know, the only true constant in life is change.
Recent from National Motorcycle Examiner
Book review: There & Back Again To See How Far It Is
Biker Quote for Today
If you haven’t crashed, you’re not riding to potential.
Tags: RumBum.com
