Thanks to our retro-cowboy movie-loving governor and the state of Texas, the famous gunfighter ballad ” Big Iron On His Hip” made popular by cowboy singer Marty Robbins in the late 1950s is now an “in your face reality.”
I ran into Mooch a few days after the open carry bill went into effect. I was walking into my favorite H.E.B and he waddled out the front entrance doing his best John Wayne walk. It was impossible to miss that he was wearing a Colt six-shooter on his hip and a genuine “The Duke” knock-off cowboy hat and fast draw holster. He was the epitome of the Texan that all of Europe imagines us to be.
“How are ya Mooch, sure like your piece,” I say.
He replies, ” yep, I figure now all the good guys will have pistola’s so the bad guys better watch out.” Point well taken.
Mooch, I say, ” if all the good guys can wear a gun, then so can all the bad guys and that will lead to a shoot-out over the last Red Baron pizza at the old H.E.B.” He was clearly thinking this one over.
“Well little buddy,” he says, ” all of us’un true blue Texans teach their kids to shoot, so we’ll give guns to the little buckaroos. If that doesn’t work, then we’ll arm our dogs too. Problem solved.”
I may be getting my groceries delivered from now on.
We have been in Corpus Christi the past few days visiting my son and his family. I will be 72 on the 17th and figured that I owe myself a bucket list item; surf one more time.
Wes, my son, was accommodating and borrowed a new-fangled all foam board that he thought I could handle. My grandson has a much shorter board because he is 8. The beach at Padre Island was the most crowded mess I have ever witnessed. Granted, the last time I was on a Texas beach on Labor day was in the mid-90s, and that was at Port Aransas. This was beyond stupid. Thousands of people parking their cars near the water, getting stuck in the sand, hogging any sliver of a spot to reach the water. After searching for an hour, Wes found a small opening and squeezed his truck into the slot.
Beach chairs unloaded, cooler and surfboards ready, my grandson and I grab our boards and wade into the surf. As it turns out, the surf today was terrible. Slushy with no good form. We struggled to find a decent wave and did luck into a few.
I paddled through the shore break past the first sand bar and tried to sit on my board. Nope, that wasn’t happening. I took off on a wave and couldn’t stand up, nope, that neither. The head injury from two years ago is most likely the culprit. No balance and no equilibrium. Being 72 didn’t help my quest. I was a good surfer in the 60s and 70s and figured it was something that could not be forgotten. Wrong on my part. The defeat was at hand, and I took it willingly.
I came back to the beach, laid the board down, and told my wife that I can now scratch this one off of the bucket list. Sometimes your eyes are bigger than your brain.
Isn’t it amazing how much General Fubar Milly Vanilli looks like John Goodman? At this point, I believe John Goodman would be a better leader of our Armed Forces.
This is student pilot Abdul Abagawaweenie III, in the cockpit of a C 17 Cargo plane that Joe Biden gifted the Taliban when the US pulled out of Afghanistan. He’s a bit challenged since the only machinery he can operate is a Toyota pickup and a motorbike. He plans to use the Billion Dollar plane to fly his buddies to parties around Kabul.
Photo courtesy of The Lone Ranger
As of September 1st, 2021, Texans can carry a firearm in public without a license or permit. Pictured above is my 15th cousin, Lilly Ann Oakley confronting a punk after he took her parking spot at Walmart. Just saying, it’s going to be the Wild Wild West all over again.
7th Century Demons from Hell, Photo by Jeanie the Genie
A reminder that 7th-century Zeleots, woman beating, boy raping, beheading murderous pieces of camel crap Demons from Hell pictured above defeated the best army the world has ever known with Toyota pickup trucks, knock off Japanese motorbikes, and shitty Chinese rifles. Our president thinks they are ok dudes. “Awww come on man, we can trust them.”
Thirteen brave young United States soldiers in flag-draped caskets were carried from a cargo plane to their grieving families. Thirteen times, our president checked his watch after each casket passed. Did he have something more important to do? This photo should say it all. If you voted for this man, you have some explaining to do.
Nancy Pelosi has partnered with those two wokie, snowflake, pansy assed antisemites, Ben and Jerry to produce her own brand of ice cream. Pictured above is her first flavor of the month.
The newest Baseball Card from “Upper Deck” collectibles.
Arizona can now legally sell weed in neighborhood grocery stores. Tom Bagger, spokesman for Safeway Food Stores says there is a state-wide shortage of Twinkies and Ding Dongs in all of the stores.
Fifteen years ago I ran across an article in “Texas Monthly Magazine” touting Marfa, Texas as the next “big deal” in the art universe. The author gushed on about Donald Judd, a prolific artist based in New York City who had moved his home base and all his toys to dusty little Marfa. Up until he arrived, Marfa was known as the backdrop for the 1956 movie “Giant.” After the article hit, van loads of weirdo artists from Austin showed up and claimed the town as their own. “Keep Austin Weird” was now “Keep Marfa Weird.” The mostly Hispanic population thought the gates for Hell had opened and released its hipster demons on their quiet township
For reasons I can’t recall, I became a bit obsessed with visiting this desert town and made myself a little Marfa bubble that grew larger with the passing years. I am also an artist and figured there was something life-altering in Marfa I needed to experience. The lure of the Big Bend desert kept calling. Time marches on and I forget about Judd and his art colony until a few years ago. I figured it was time to make the trip to Marfa.
My wife and I decided that after our summer vacation in Ruidoso, New Mexico, we would drive down to Marfa and scratch one item off of my bucket list. At my age, every trip becomes a bucket list item because my shelf life could expire any day now.
Five hours of driving through the Chiuauan desert landed us in Alpine Texas and the 1950s era motor hotel “The Antelope Lodge.” Retro doesn’t begin to describe this place. Very little updating has been done since the 1950s and the stucco cabins reek of the halcyon years of family road trips in large station wagons. I believe that the Cleaver’s may have stayed here. I can imagine The Beaver and Wally sitting in the courtyard eating Moon Pies and drinking RC Cola in the 100 degrees heat.
Marfa is a short hop from Alpine so the next morning we are on the road early, planning to catch breakfast in Marfa. I’m thinking about bacon, eggs, and pancakes Texas-style while Maureen is wanting fluffy biscuits and sausage gravy. Yum Yum.
Driving into town, the scenery is not what we expected or what I had found online. Dilapidated house trailers surrounded by broken down rusted cars line the highway on both sides. Not the best greeting for visitors. My bubble just sprang a leak.
Once in town, we realize that everything is closed. The art gallery is open on Saturday only, the Hotel Paisano lobby is closed until 5 PM, the Hotel St. George lounge doesn’t open until evening, the square is deserted and the only signs of life are some foreign tourists taking selfies in front of a boarded-up hardware store. My bubble is leaking air big time.
Now officially starving, we search for food, and found “Marfa Burritos,” the only restaurant open, and calling it a restaurant is a stretch.
Marfa Burrito dining area
A burrito is $7.00 and a warm can of Coke is a buck. What the hell, it’s food. The kitchen is located inside a ramshackle frame house; peeling paint and rotted siding give it that weathered west Texas appeal.
A young man and woman are ordering their burrito from the cook. They smell like incense and the girl has more armpit hair than the guy. I figure they must be from “El Cosmico,” the transcendental hipster enclave of yurts and vintage travel trailers that everyone online is raving about.
The outside dining area needed a little attention. A feral cat was munching on a half-eaten burrito that fell from an overflowing trash bin, and ants and flies are everywhere. I’m thinking Marfa doesn’t have a health inspector.
After breakfast, we decide to visit the Prada exhibit, which the Marfa website says is located just outside of town. Some years ago, two German artists constructed a small building full of Prada handbags and shoes in the middle of the desert, and it became the main tourist attraction for Presidio County. The other attraction is the Marfa Lights; twinkling orbs that dance around in the mountains east of town. The locals claim the lights are Aliens or maybe disgruntled Indian spirits. Some of the older folks believe they are the ghost of James Dean, Rock Hudson, and Elizebeth Taylor, the long-departed stars of the Giant movie.
We drive for twenty-minuets and no Prada. We check Google maps and find it is another half-hour’s drive to Prada. To hell with that, so we turn around and motor back to Marfa. My fifteen-year-old bubble just popped. We decide to return to Alpine, pack our gear, and head for home. No more bubbles for me.
Last week was our annual summer trip to Ruidoso New Mexico. High in the Sacramento Mountains at 6500 ft. above sea level, the temperature was a pleasant 75 degrees in the daytime and a chilly low in the 50s at night compared to our 98 degrees high in Granbury Texas. I didn’t break a sweat for a week and didn’t worry about a damn thing that was happening back in Texas, although the national news covering the Afghanistan debacle gave my wife and me a few restless nights. A couple of iced tumblers of Tullamore Dew while sitting on the covered deck took the jangle off of our nerves.
Like most villages in the New Mexico mountains, Ruidoso has a large population of Deer, Elk, and wild Mustang horses. Pictured above is a local four-legged resident that took a liking to my watermelon and granola cereal. The small Doe was going gaga over the gluten-free granola, eating large handfuls from my palm. When I fed her bites of cold watermelon, well, she almost danced with glee. I was surprised how dainty her mouth was, and her gentle nibbles showed no sign of biting. She and I experienced a small mind meld and came away with a better understanding of the complicated relationship between man and wild beast. I have the food, she likes the food, I feed her the food and she likes me, and I like her too. It was illuminating, to say the least.
The picture above is when she tried to take the bowl of watermelon from my hand, or possibly give me a kiss of appreciation. Either way, she was a sweetie, and I named her Sweetface. I considered naming her Marfa, after the west Texas town we visited a few days later, but I am glad I didn’t because Marfa was a complete letdown and bubble buster. More on that experience later.
Notes From The Cactus Patch 
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