Author: Phil Strawn

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The Texan Heads To South Dakota

/ Phil Strawn / Leave a comment
Cowboy-hatted man on ATV amid charging buffalo

This Texan and his Mrs. Texan, Momo, are heading to South Dakota next week for the annual cowboy and cowgirl event of rounding up the 1,400-plus Buffalo (Bison) in Custer State Park. No, there will not be another reenactment of the Little Bighorn, and Custer won’t be there. No arrows will be flying through the air. It’s a three-day affair with about 20K folks wandering around drinking beer and eating BBQ.

Most of my readers know I have a dropped right foot and a gimped-up right leg from a botched back surgery, so I can’t run, and on most days I do my best to walk a semi-straight line, which is usually two or three feet either way, off straight.

I want to be part of the roundup; it’s a bucket-list thing, a Texas thing. I grew up herding cattle sitting on a mule on my grandfather’s ranch, so it’s nothing new to me. I contacted a man in Keystone, SD, who is outfitting an all-terrain vehicle with a fully encapsulated safety cage, high-powered operational cattle prods, and GoPro streaming Starlink cameras mounted to the vehicle so I can run and live stream, or in this case drive, with the Bison, sort of like Hemingway did with the bulls in Spain in the 1930s. He was trampled twice, either by the bulls themselves or the terrified Spaniards, but lived to write about it: he was likely inebriated both times. Momo, the Mrs. Texan, refuses to ride with me and may have me arrested for something she can dream up before the Round-Up begins. I know my brain ain’t right; she knows it too, but it’s something I’ve got to do. I’m driven to the point of knowing I will likely be trampled. What is a lightweight all-terrain vehicle to a 2500 pound Buffalo, nothing but a gum wrapper on the ground. They are a bit mean and honary, and pay no attention to stupid folks. They do respect the cowboys and cowgirls on horses, but that’s it: it must be out of tradition.

We plan to see all the sites: Mount Rushmore, the Black Hills, Devils Tower ( minus the spaceship), Prairie Dog City, Marshall Dillon’s grave, Custer’s scalp mounted in a glass case, and so on. But mainly we want to be cool, cold, and comfortable. Momo has her new boots, I got a new Cowboy hat, and we are ready if the drive doesn’t kill us.

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From 9/11 Honor to Political Shame: What Happened to New York?

/ Phil Strawn / 13 Comments

How much worse can it get? AOC, the little girl from the fake hood who was a bartender and the Islamist Mayor of New York, yucking it up at the 911 Memorial as the names of the dead were being read by relatives of the deceased. An avowed socialist, a sitting member of our Congress, and an avowed Islamist, socialist, communist, Jew hating, Christian-hating, American-hating, terrorist sympathizer demon serving as the mayor of America’s greatest city. It used to be; now it’s but a shell of itself. My heart goes out to the good people of New York who wished for none of this.

The young, hip, elite, overeducated, self-absorbed, narcissistic, worthless POS elected these two. American Jews voted for them; our young and privileged voted for them. Has their new BMW been delivered yet? How about those free grocery stores in every neighborhood? Wall Street is fleeing for its life, headed to Dallas, Texas, as fast as they can find a building.

Has our American Jewish community forgotten what happened to their families and relatives in Europe in the late 1930s through 1945, and in Israel on October 7th, 2023, when women, men, and children were murdered in the worst ways imaginable? And that smiling bastard approved of it all and would gladly pull the lever for it to happen again. What the hell has happened to the United States of America? I feel horrible for the good people in New York, but the rest of you deserve what you voted for, and it won’t be good. How dare that piece of Rat Shit show up and dishonor and celebrate what his peers did to our American citizens twenty-five years ago and are still doing today? I am disgusted.

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The End Is Near: Sort Of….

/ Phil Strawn / 10 Comments

We all remember the cartoons, or perhaps the real person dressed in a robe, carrying the sign that read “Repent: The End Is Near.” I’m not that guy, but for the last 70 years or so, he and others like him have been saying it, and they might be right. It’s closer now than ever.

Crazy old man,” that’s what my grandfather called him, walking in front of Leonard Brothers Department Store in downtown Fort Worth around Christmas time, wearing out the concrete sidewalk. He was dressed as a person in Biblical times: robe, sandals, long hair, beard, and the sign was painted on a distressed piece of plywood that had seen many years of weather. He carried it with conviction, not caring what other shoppers thought of his look or his presence of lunacy. I was a kid, maybe six or seven at best, and I sensed that this crazy old guy knew something I didn’t. Grandfather didn’t pay him much mind; we continued on into the store to buy whatever he was purchasing that day. I was along for the bus ride and the walk.

Our preacher at Poly Baptist Church used that term often: usually during or right before the ushers passed the plate around for donations; we call it tithing today. I would reluctantly put my treasured nickel in the plate, wanting to keep it because it would help me buy something I assumed I needed. Kids didn’t have actual money in the 1950s, only what they could scrounge up, find on the sidewalk, or get from their parents. I was a hard-broke kid, selling pop bottles to support my habit of Dr Pepper soft drinks and Zero Candy Bars. Our Preacher knew all the phrases and when to use them to gain the most cash from our congregation. The all-old-lady choir would sing some hymn; a few would faint, and that always brought in more change. ” Oh my, she might have to go to the hospital, where the whispers of the other big-haired old gals.” That was the drill.

Now here we are, seventy years later, and nothing has changed. We are still saying “Repent: The End Is Near,” and it is closer than we think. What moron on this planet would think that Iran, once called Persia for centuries, was a vibrant country with good values and a modern society, would be the one to take out the entire Western civilization? What person with a functioning mind would think that these zealots don’t have a few or more dirty bombs stashed away for a rainy day? Although it never rains in Iran, that’s why they don’t farm; it’s a damn desert with 12th-century idiots running around in robes and rags on their heads, killing anyone who doesn’t bow to their ideology. Try and pull that crap off in Texas and hide and watch what happens.

The point I am trying to make is: yes, the end is near, and Iran is desperate, and they all want to go to hang out with Allah and do whatever they do to 72 virgins, so they don’t think about the other side of the coin. Satan is awaiting their arrival and planning some new stuff just for them.

Those virgins will be long-deceased nuns, on loan from Heaven just for chuckles, with shotguns and rifles, and a never-ending supply of ammo, and they know how to use those weapons. So forget the fornication and cooking me dinner part. Abdul will be eating a Satanic form of Weight Watchers microwave dinners that are all pork: stuff that even Oprah wouldn’t touch.

Don’t mess with Israel, and also, don’t mess with Texas; we are kinda the same temperament. If the Mullah does send a dirty little bomb he purchased from some Chinese guy out of the trunk of a Toyota, Israel will likely shoot it down, then return it to them in another form.

The crazy old guy on the street carrying the sign ain’t so crazy anymore. Right?

God Bless Texas, the Alamo, and Whataburger, too.

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The Postman Always Rings Twice

/ Phil Strawn / 18 Comments

A long-lost cousin, not particularly lost; we just haven’t spoken in a while, called me out of nowhere the other day. We gabbed a bit about family, and then she said, ” I received mail-in ballots for my parents and our grandparents who have been dead for decades and half a century; what should I do with them?” I answered, ” Nothing, burn them. Then, a few days later, this nice lady with green hair and a vote-for-El-Sayed T-shirt showed up at her door, saying that the USPS had accidentally sent her ballots for deceased relatives and asking if she could return them to the post office. This is how it starts, this is how it’s done, this is what we face. My cousin, a country girl with a slightly prickly temper, punched the lady out and off her front porch and burned the ballots in their firepit on the hot September evening as the fireflies and crickets serenaded her family in the backyard, as they streamed Ella Langley’s new album. I wonder how many times my long-dead grandparents have voted. Should we all wonder?

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Is It 1765 Again? Yes.

/ Phil Strawn / 10 Comments

Some months back, I said, under duress, that I would write less about politics and world events, only to calm my family from disowning me, which a few did anyway, but I could care less. I do, and welcome the grief, the foul language, and the loss of followers from this post, but I am at the point where some things have to be said by an average older American who can’t smile and hold it in anymore. Yep, all of my filters left this body years ago. That’s why my picture is in every Home Depot, Lowe’s, and other stores in town. Don’t help this old man; it’s an honor.

Our mainstream media, or what’s left of it, won’t say it; our woke children and grandchildren have no interest in real American history, how this country evolved, and why it is now threatened. They live in a teachers’ union-manufactured, protected fairy land where everyone rides Unicorns around campus and sprinkles themselves with fairy dust every morning to avoid reality.

Ireland, Scotland, Spain, Italy, and now parts of the UK are done with illegal immigration and the hordes of invaders, and are fighting back. They want to preserve their heritage, lineage, history, their country, and their wives’ and daughters’ lives and futures. I somehow get the feeling that here, we don’t see it the same way: or do we, and are so inept we refuse to fight back?

We have a president whom everyone who is a non-Christian or a liberal hates with a vengeance, that is so deep it has destroyed families, friends, and marriages, and is willing to sacrifice anything, even their pitiful lives, to prevent him from handing over our country to a vast army of invaders.

The young, university-educated, hip, liberal women are psychotic; the young men are without balls, but their man bun looks good and their skinny jeans fit well. And everyone is so hopped up on doctor-prescribed drugs that they think the books, the Koran, Animal Farm, 1984, and the computer HAL 5000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey are reality.

The men, males, with the correct hormones God gave them, are fighting back. And now, the women, real women, the ones like our mothers and grandmothers, that know what God made, are joining in. The Irish and Scottish and some Britons are arming themselves in militias and kicking these worthless moochers and criminals out of their countries. The problem I have with the entire scenario is: where in the United States of America are our militias, our Minute Men with muskets, pitchforks, hoes, or any tree limb they could use as a weapon to drive out the invader? They are not British as they were in the 1700s; they are Islamic, and their ideology doesn’t meld with Western values or civilization. It’s not a religion; it’s a coup to make the world Islamic and impose sharia law on every person on this planet, and that is an entire book of hundreds of chapters on why they want to take our country from us. Where are we, and why are we not stopping this? There are pages of questions and accusations I could write, but this small blurb will infuriate enough people as it is.

We have one man and a few others who are in public office who can see what is coming. A respected historian, Victor Davis Hanson, Pastor Greg Laurie, Doctor David Jeremiah, and others see it, call it as it is, and warn us, yet our young people, or should I call them “sheeple,” have been indoctrinated to the point of impotence and paralysis, cowering in a corner, shaking like a trapped Rat with a Terrier snarling a few inches away.

Let me say it another way: we do have men and women joining our military in droves, and they are Christians, or, if not true believers, patriots that see the clear and present danger that has already taken hold of our land. They know the dangers; they are willing to put their lives at risk and step over that line drawn by a sword in the hallowed dirt floor of the Alamo by William Travis. They will board that ship that may get hit by a missile, be the soft target for that bullet, or lose a limb to a roadside bomb, come home disfigured, or in a casket, or take a knife in the chest while having supper with their family at their neighborhood Pizza Hut. This country is not safe; our citizens, our heritage, our way of life that my family members fought for are in jeopardy of dissolving before our eyes. Look around today as you go about your chores and errands; you will see it if you look close enough.

This entire “shit show” started with the Woodstock flock and the idealistic generation that supported it. I was one of them, until I grew up, worked, paid taxes, suffered through life, and am now about done with all of it. That decade gave us some historical music, unbelievable science, but not much else. Gloria Steinham, Betty Friedan, Pauli Murray, Susan Brownmiller, Bella Abzug, and the organizations they formed that turned all-American teenage girls into crazed feminists. Thank God, not all of them bought into it, but enough did to turn the tide and divide this country. Oh, wait, I forgot Angela Davis, the radical Black Panther, and her minions: kill whitey, kill everyone, then bring Fidel Castro over to run the country for us. Burn the typewriters and copy machines. Kids? We don’t need children to hold us down; they are a chain around our neck, screw them.

You may think I dislike women, but I don’t in any way. I only dislike women like the ones mentioned above, and the millions like them that move among us now, and will get in your face about anything. They know us men, us older men, raised correctly, won’t punch them out, but that is also changing. Without women, we wouldn’t have great doctors, scientists, nurses, mothers, teachers, warriors, and a long list of other contributions. Women bring empathy to a world where men are far less empathetic about most things. Knuckle-dragging Neanderthals chewing on a raw leg bone of a saber-toothed tiger. Yeah, I can be that way sometimes, but then Momo, my dear sweet wife, who was a nurse and understands far more than most, keeps me in check as best she can.

I am an old man and will be 77 in a few weeks, but I would join that militia, pick up that rifle, put on that fifty-pound backpack, and drive the evil invaders from our country. God knows our ballless politicians will never do it. They are there for the gravy train, the yellow brick road, and a never-ending land of Oz. Not Dr. Oz; I dig him.

Christians, men and women, had better put your Bible to your forehead, pray, and ask the good Lord forgiveness for what you are about to do, and give us the strength and fortitude to pull it off. Sally-Forth, pick your weapon, whether it be fierce religion or a gun, but for Christ’s sake, do something.

Our Pastors, Priests, Preachers, Men of the cloth, and Elders in churches need to get on board and stop with this “love everybody” BS they preach on YouTube and from the pulpit every Sunday. You read the Bible, and it is full of evil people and the evil deeds they committed, and how Christians stopped what they could, and thousands of years later, are still waging that war. We have been invaded, and the enemy is entrenched in political offices around our country, pushing for their Sharia law and to hell with Christianity, and let’s not forget Gods chosen people, the Jews; they want every one of them dead, and if a Christian is in the way, well then, we are dead also. Hitler and his cronies would be a perfect fit today. Dress them in a nice Brooks Brothers suit, give them a microphone or a podcast, and we have the 1930s repeated. Tribalism is alive and thriving in this country. I wince at using the term “us against them,” but it’s too much of a perfect fit to not say it.

To all my 1,000-plus followers, if you don’t care for my opinion or my options, tell me. I have skin as hard as Teflon-coated steel, and shit rolls off of me like it does the Clintons. That’s what blogging and writing is about, Dear Hearts; it’s not all poetry, pretty stories with happy endings; it’s sometimes the harshest of truths. But let me tell you, I am one pissed-off Texan and am a good shot. God Bless Texas and The Alamo.

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Negative PET Scan, Positive Outlook: Facing The Future With Humor

/ Phil Strawn / 21 Comments

Momo and I met with my neurologist yesterday to find out the results of my PET scan from a few weeks ago. My regular doc thought that, since I failed my cognitive test so badly, I may have Alzheimer’s disease. Well, Dear Hearts, my neurologist was so pleased that he gave me a high-five. I was in the negative range, -195. My scan was better than his, and he admitted he has never seen anyone my age (almost 77) without any markers indicating future oldtimers. so he says, I will never get oldtimers, but, and that’s the key word. I could still be developing Dementia, and I do have excessive fluid buildup on the left side of my brain and will have that removed in about six months. That explains the falls, the goofy walk, forgetfulness, and a number of other things. He says he uses all Craftsman tools, and the surgery is guaranteed for life; that’s a relief. He said I could keep the fluid, and it looks really cool mixed in with the oil in those 1960s bubble lamps: we still have a few around here somewhere, just not sure where. He said to keep playing music every day; it stimulates the brain and helps you learn new things that old dogs shouldn’t be able to. My wife was so excited; she now wants her on a PET scan, but can it come with a little French Bulldog?

Momo and I joke around about our daily moments of forgetfulness, sometimes funny, often not. She forgets things; I forget more. I haven’t found my car key FOB in the fridge yet, but I did find it in the freezer. I told her the freezing temps preserve the battery life and help keep my leg cool.

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Throwing Shade, Texas-Style: ‘Bless Their Hearts’ and Beyond

/ Phil Strawn / 12 Comments

Texans Have Been Doing It For A Century Or More, And I Was One Of Them

I will admit to being ignorant about some things, and the term ” throwing shade” at someone or something meant nothing to me. Us’n Texans have been doing it for years. I recently discovered what it meant by accident, using AI.

All of my relatives were professionals at this so-called newest trend. My grandmother’s ” Well, bless her little heart,” was the favorite one. The side-eye glance, the eye rolls, the fart, and shaking your leg — all of them —were used around me since childhood. I had no idea it was a form of insult or mockery, just an old farm saying. I’ve done it myself, and to this day, I still say ” Bless their little heart,” which means they are plumb stupid as a dead rock.

Momo, my wife, is not a Texan: she was hauled down here from Pennsylvania for her father’s job at Texas Instruments. She has a few of her own. When you’re uptight about something, you’re ” wound up like a nickel rat.” That’s those cheap 1950s Japanese mice you wound up and let them scurry around the floor; the spring usually broke after a few times, so they became something of a novelty.

My good friend, Jarry Boy Davis, in our teenage rock band years, heard plenty of them from his mother, an in-your-face Southern lady from Memphis. ” He’s as crazy as a peach orchard squirrel; that guy is a stupid tool. Can’t pour piss out of his own boots.” If a girl was downright ugly, she would be called ” an unfortunate-looking little thing.” Same for the boys.

Now that I am old and have nothing to lose, I will participate in more “shading” events, especially when it comes to those “panty waist” men in Washington. Why do we senior citizens dislike our government so intensely? I’ll write about that another time.

The Ozempic crowd in Hollywood seem to be the worst, and the best at it. All of those poor folks, skin and bones, bulging eyes, failing organs, having to be helped to walk onto the movie set, they shade everyone, even themselves, without knowing it. ” Bless their little hearts.”

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Take Away The Roll, All You Have Left Is Sour Jelly

/ Phil Strawn / 9 Comments

How the social network makes stars and then destroys them: it’s not new. Old-school Hollywood, the payolas, the folks that tracked the gossip and used a typewriter, had Hedda Hopper, Louella Parsons, and Walter Winchell, devious slayers of careers long before the internet.

Jelly Roll, the once-marginal, talented criminal with the facial tattoos and the sordid background, became the “let’s accept the weirdo into country music” darling of the year because he claims to have accepted Jesus and become a Christian, also losing over 300 pounds in the process. The influencers and social media slobbered all over him and his reality-show-looking wife, Bunny Foo-Foo; despite her looks, she is a very nice woman and deserved non of what the scumbag did to her. They were the new royalty of Nashville, in a weird new-age, screwed-up Nashville sort of way. Hank didn’t do it this way: Chet Atkins and Roy Acuff are begging Jesus to send them back down to Nashville for one more day to fix this mess.

I’ve nothing against overweight folks; some just can’t help it. Genetic, symbolic, antagonistic, impulsive — who knows: some of the best Christian folks I know are overweight and have hearts to match their faith. The Roll ain’t one of them, no more.

I think face tats are over the top unless you’re a gang member in Mexico and want to be a badd-ass. A very talented country singer from Texas, Post Malone has face tats, can sing his butt off, is a good musician, and is a follower of Jesus. Jelly is all pompous-assed blubbering and bought into the Hollywood woke scene to further his career, something our angel Dolly Parton refused to do, and she did better than any of them as far as fortunes and philanthropic goals go. Maybe Ella Langley will come close to her. Hide and watch.

There is a song out there on Spotify and Amazon Music titled ” We Need A Little Mercy Now,” by another Texan from Houston, Mary Gaither, an avowed lesbian and a Christian, a recovering addict, and you name it, that says, ” Some people will do anything to keep their crown.” Well, dear hearts, Jelly Roll just made her song another hit. God help this world we live in. God Bless Texas and the Alamo.

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Getting The Skinny…

/ Phil Strawn / 14 Comments

Gravy The Clone Dog

I dropped by Whataburger a few mornings back for a Taquito and O.J. I’m still not comfortable calling frozen orange juice OJ, considering what Simpson did, but sometimes I still do.

Sitting in his usual booth was Mooch, with Gravy, the clone Chiuauia of Giblet, strapped to his chest in the child carrier. There was an order of biscuits and gravy sitting in front of him with one bite missing. Gravy the dog had a bit of gravy on his little chin, and Mooch looked like he had lost his prized hog. He also appeared to have lost weight. I sat down with my aromatic Taquito and asked why he wasn’t eating. The smell of fresh eggs, sausage and a lucious tortilla wafting around us as if we were in a five star resturant. Gravy stared intently at the tatar tots.

” He says, Mrs. Mooch put me on those GPL-1 drugs, and I don’t have an appetite anymore, for nuthin. They’re gummies and taste real good, so Gravy likes them too, and now he’s not eating, and we’re both looking like Oprah, all skinny and bony.” I will admit, the dog looked worse, bulging eyes, that Ozempic face, and Mooch looked like he had been vacationing at Dachau.

” That clone cat, Here Kitty Kitty, is so skinny she crawled into a Dr Pepper bottle, and I had to call the fire department to get her out. I’ll tell you, we are wasting away here. My wife says she is going to audition for Taylor Sheridan’s new show, and has to have that Hollywood Ozempic look to get a part: the only part she could get now would be a corpse.”

He’s right, everyone in Hollywood looks about to die at any moment, and they are shooting themselves up and gobbling those pills as fast as they can get them from CVS or their favorite pharmady in Tijuana.

I wanted to be sympathetic with him, but my Taquito tasted too darn good, so I gobbled away as he drooled and tears ran down his cheeks. The dog passed out.

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God’s Wisdom Works In Quiet Ways: A Young Man’s Journey Begins

/ Phil Strawn / 8 Comments

Bad relationships were always the same: they started starry-eyed, then grew wary, then became shaky, and ended in a flurry of fleeing.  This had been the young man’s life for years. His siblings were as trapped as he was. Bondage has many forms. There was no way out except through the back door, and on to somewhere, anywhere. But once that door closed behind him, he was homeless, and the dark of the night enveloped him like an evil blanket.

A new town, a new state, a new boyfriend. How many had there been in his mother’s life? His father had been purposefully absent for a long while now.  He and the boy still spoke a few times a year, but he had moved on, and his mother was still fighting her inner demons, hoping to find the right man to be a provider, or perhaps a father for her children, but the same wrong choices produced the same results. Now, another move from a failed relationship was in process, back to their home state.  He couldn’t stomach leaving his high school, his friends, or his church.

His Church Youth Pastor, a man of Christian principle and a solid father to his children, all high school age themselves, offered the young man a place to stay in their home until he graduated: a temporary solution to a frantic problem. The offer was genuine, and the Christianity and camaraderie in the home were what the boy needed, craved, and sought. His journey to God began in desperation, as he needed to distance himself from peers who were leading him into dark places.  He needed to be loved and helped in his lowest times.  He accepted the offer from the pastor; his mother, once again, moved, leaving him with nothing but a few clothes and deep feelings of abandonment. It was a multi-act play that kept repeating itself.  He could have collapsed and withdrawn into himself, but the other teens in the family, the pastor, and his wife refused to let that happen.  They were not wealthy in money, but the wealth they held and offered was spiritual guidance, and that mattered more than dollars.

The boy’s parents were not citizens; neither of them was legal to live in this country.  They made poor decisions that adversely affected him and his siblings. He had no driver’s license, no car, no money, no job- just existence, the loving family that gave him refuge, and his church, which strengthened his soul. Dreams of someday were always there. He was an artist, blessed with a talent. One day, he might discover a way to put this blessing to use.

Many of the older congregants worried about the young man.  Some knew only snippets of his story; a few knew more, but the worry and the need to help him were always there. Odd jobs were offered that put cash in his pocket. It was while he worked with plants and the earth that he discovered his love for living things. His time with the Pastor and his family was nearing its end.  School was over, a new year was beginning, and it was time to move on and make a life for himself. He had often thought of the military as a way to kick-start his life; now it was a real option sitting flat on the table: pen in hand, papers to sign, many tests to take, and then on to serve his country. He made his decision and will soon be a United States Marine. His life will change forever, for the better, and he will never forget the people who gave him that encouragement and chance.