Bob Newland is a man of relevant questions. Sometimes difficult, relevant questions.
He has asked me, for example, how a man of my intelligence — which I’m going to presume he considers to be at least slightly above average — can be a believer in God and, even more, a fervently believing-and-practicing Catholic.
It’s a question, I have to admit, that I have so far failed to answer to my own satisfaction, much less Newland’s.
He questions beliefs. He questions laws. He questions social mores. He questions conversational etiquette. And he questions politicians, mostly through sometimes profane, often-snotty, periodically hilarious multi-pronged satire on social media.
And in the past, he has wrapped those questions, and a few emphatic statements, up into a string of unsuccessful-but-relevant political campaigns for elected office. He ran for state attorney general, governor and the U.S. Congress, all on his beloved Libertarian ticket.
During the AG campaign, Newland presented what is and will remain one of my all-time-favorite political slogans: “At least I’m not a lawyer.”
You don’t actually have to be one, by the way, to be the AG, a concept Newland couldn’t quite sell to the voters.
And, of course, in what might be his best-known public role, Newland has long pushed for legalization of marijuana. He also questions quite harshly the notion of a “war on drugs,” its costs — human and financial — and its very existence as anything other than mean-spirited governmental overreach.
Is it a war on drugs, he might ask, or a war on people by a heavy-handed government with a wrong-headed philosophy?
He’s a questioner, then. A challenger. An inquisitor.
So, I was not surprised that he had a question for me after I had a number of questions for him during an interview for this column as I stood, and he sat in a shady spot along U.S. Highway 14A partway up Spearfish Canyon. What surprised me was that I didn’t get the question in person, or right away.
Between a rock and a Newland question
I found Newland’s question a half hour after our interview, scribbled on a piece of paper stuck under a rock propped up prominently on the open tailgate of my pickup, which was parked in the sun near Spearfish Creek a hundred yards or so downstream from where we’d had our chat.
After the interview, I had walked back to the pickup, slipped on my chest waders and sloshed around in the creek for a while, waving the magic wand of graphite over the water in hopes, as Norman Maclean famously wrote, that a fish would rise. One did. A nice brown trout. And that was enough, for then.
So, I slogged back to the pickup and I found the note. In it, Newland thanked me for stopping by and asked: “Was I just an excuse to go fishing? Or was it the other way around?”
Of course, my answer was: “Yes.”
The Newland interview was an excuse to go fishing. And fishing was an excuse for the Newland interview. They made a pretty good combination on the fourth day of the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, especially when added to the weather. The sun was shining and the temperature in Rapid City was forecast to reach a comfortable 83 or so, about 15 degrees lower than the highs predicted in the days to follow.
And it was, as usual, even a few degrees cooler up the canyon, where I found Newland with his Nikon D200 and zoom lens, practicing his comfortable version of commerce from a shady spot just above the Maurice dam.
That’s where we should start with this Bob Newland business seminar: in the shade.
Thousands of clicks a day, and some photo sales, too
But it’s not just for his personal comfort. It’s also because it’s easier to find shade with the sun at your back. And Newland wants the sun at his back and the passing motorcycles in the sun, for the photos.
Thousands of photos, each day.
“I’ve got 3,800 so far today,” Newland said somewhere around mid-afternoon (I try not to watch the time exactly when I’m up the canyon). “My first was at 9 a.m.”
The day before, from 8:30 a.m. to 3:15 p.m., he shot 3,900 pictures. Which is pretty impressive, until you consider the big 75th anniversary rally year in 2015, which was attended by an estimated 739,000 bikers, two or three times this year’s predicted total.
“That was by far the best for me,” Newland said. “I had some 10,000 (picture) days.”
Which caused him to reminisce about the old photo days in a way that a guy my age — which is about Newland’s — with some photo experience could appreciate. As the bikes whizzed past going one way or the other and Newland — eye locked onto the viewfinder — jerked left and right in his lawn chair, he said:
“Try to imagine how many cameras and assistants I’d have to have to shoot this with 36-exposure rolls of film.”
I remember those film rolls. Different world. Different cameras. Same general rally scenes, though, full of loud motorcycles and leather-clad riders, often mugging for the camera.
Clicks are cash for Newland, who is in his 12th year of capturing passing riders during the rally. The digital images are on display and up for sale on the sturgis.com website. Newland says it’s a simple financial formula:
“The average is about one (ordered photo) per 100 clicks,” he said. “So, I figure the more clicks the more money.”
Feeling a little dizzy before the photo rhythm sets in
Also, more dizziness, for me, at least. Standing there watching him swivel back and forth to catch as many passing riders — he got most, it looked like — as possible, I tried to follow the riders myself and soon felt a little woozy. I asked if he didn’t feel the same.
“For the first couple of days all the swinging back and forth kind of gets to me,” he said. “But then I get into a rhythm.”
Books on tape can help with that rhythm. When I was there, Newland had been listening to David Halberstam’s “The Coldest Winter,” a look at the Korean War published after Halberstam died in a traffic accident in April of 2007. Halberstam thought the manuscript might have been his best. Newland tends to agree.
Snacks help with the rhythm, too. Newland doesn’t lunch as much as he nibbles, when he has a moment, on sushi, olives and pickled peppers, kept in a cooler nearby.
“I don’t break, but I eat pretty well,” he said.
He sips some, too, as the can of Flat Tire resting in the right cupholder of his lawn chair indicated. And, unfortunately, he still smokes some, too. No, no, nor that, at least not in the canyon, when I was there. Really. I mean tobacco, as the American Spirit box and lighter near the Fat Tire also indicated.
After years in the canyon, Newland gets a pretty good idea of rally turnout and trends. This year he figures bike flow through Spearfish Canyon is down maybe 10 per cent, maybe 12 percent from last year. He says he’s seeing more couples on bikes. And the trend of more women riding their own bikes is continuing.
Black riders are still uncommon, although Newland has seen one go by sporting the “Black Lives Matter” message.
Other than the occasional obscene gesture, they’re a pleasant lot
Most riders are in a good mood, Newland said, estimating that “97 1/2 percent are pleasant people.”
Those who are noticeably unfriendly tend to be “disaffected youth.” I didn’t ask if, like me, he considers “youth” to mean anyone under 50. Some more fervent MAGA followers can be unfriendly, too, Newland said, perhaps because they mistake him for the evil Mainstream Media.
But there are plenty of Trump fans on wheels this week here in the Black Hills, and most seem to be in a good mood. That was clear from Newland’s vantage point. While I was there, most people waved and many smiled as they passed. Only a few didn’t seem to notice Newland or go unnoticed and un-photographed by him.
And one man and woman on a bike realized they weren’t photographed going by, so they pulled a U-turn and came back. As they drove past Newland the man yelled: “We’ll come back around.”
They did, with waves and a smile. And a picture.
As the signs he posts nearby proclaim, riders can go to sturgis.com and “See our pix … by day and time.” If you go there, you can look for Newland’s gallery, where the photos are displayed by date and time. He is one of several independent photographers with galleries on the official page. The others are in the Badlands, Needles Highway and Pactola.
I’m sure those are good spots, too. And some of the photos by those other independent photographers that I’ve seen on Sturgis.com are quite good. I admit, though, I’m partial to Newland’s. That’s in part because of the stunning backdrop of the canyon and his well-thought-out shooting location.
But it’s also because it’s Newland, who’s always up to something. And it’s usually something interesting.
I doubt he’ll question me much on that.
