Tall Tales and Ripping Yarns from The Great State Of Texas
Author: Phil Strawn
I'm a 7th generation Texan and write about growing up in this great state. Tall tales and ripping yarns are what Texas is about, and I will oblige my readers with these. Most stories are true, some are a total fabrication, and others are a bit of both.
Here in Texas, we have more down-home sayings than cattle. “Ain’t Scared” is one of them, and it sort of says it all about how we Texans feel about the crap that our government fan throws our way. The above title is real, and Dear Hearts, this time we should be scared…real scared. If the title doesn’t hit you in the gut, perhaps the picture will.
How I long for the presence and the voice of the esteemed Paul Harvey. His ability to provide perspective on our nation’s turmoil and division would be invaluable.
By request, I am again publishing this post, including my 1968 recording of the band I was part of, The A.T.N.T.; formally, we were the Orphans but changed our name at the suggestion of Mark Lee Productions, our manager. Enjoy.
The year was 1968, and the rock band I played in, The A.T.N.T., recorded a 45 at Summit Sounds in Dallas, Texas. The band had been called The Orphans, but a copywriting dispute resulted in a name change. Our then-manager, Mark Lee Productions, wasn’t keen on the idea because we had been under his management and promotion for a year.
The A side is “Cobblestone Street,” written and sung by myself and our drummer Barry Corbett. The B side is ” No One Told Me About Her,” written and sung by our lead singer and bass player, Danny Goode. The two producers, Marvin Montgomery and Artie Glenn, suggested we add horns to get a Chicago Transit Authority sound. Before the brass was added, Cobblestone Street was loud and raw with loud guitars and organs. After adding the horns, we returned to the studio and tweaked the cuts. I purposely untuned my Gibson 335 a bit to give the guitar break a bit of an out-of-tune carnival sound. Marvin, who went by the name of Smokey, was a member of the Light Crust Doughboys since the 1930s and played with Bob Wills. He produced Paul and Paula and Delbert McClinton. Artie Glenn wrote the famous Elvis hit “Crying In The Chapel” and many others; he was also a Light Crust Doughboy western swing musician. These two men were top-shelf record producers, so we listened when they suggested.
The A.T.N.T. at Flower Fair 1968
Our band members in the above picture are: foreground right John P. Strawn ( me ), then Jarry Davis on rhythm guitar, Barry Corbett on drums, Danny Goode on bass, and Marshall Sartin on keyboards. Barry and Marshall have passed on, but Danny, Jarry, myself, and our wives met for lunch a few weeks back in Fort Worth. It’s obvious why we all have severe hearing loss from the large amplifiers turned up to 11.
We introduced the songs at Flower Fair 1968 but without the horns. The Doors were supposed to play the event, but last-minute scheduling got sideways, and they couldn’t make it. This was the Spencer Davis Group without Steve Wynwood in the band. LeCirque ( The Smell Of Incense Fills The Air ) was formally known as The Southwest F.O.B. with members England Dan and John Ford Coley, who would later go on to fame as a duo, both local Texas boys. Kenny and the Kasuals were also a local group managed by Mark Lee.
The record received good airplay, but we never made much money. Distribution was the key, although the local radio personalities gave it positive chatter. Hope you enjoy the tunes.
It would be a shame if I didn’t include some local 1960s rock musical history by spotlighting our drummer, Barry Corbett, otherwise known in our tight little musical circle as ” Li’l Spector.” The moniker came about because the boy, at age 15 years old, was a musical genius in the same vein as Brian Wilson, Leonard Bernstein, and Phil Spector: thus his earned nickname. We would never know why he chose the drums as his primary instrument: the guy played an assortment, including Bongo drums, kazoo, paper and comb, Dog House bass, violin, Hurdy Gurdy, guitar, keyboards, Vibes, Trumpet, Piccolo, Harmonica, Juice-Harp, Spoons, Autoharp, Dulcimer, French Horn, Tabla, finger cymbals, gasoline-powered Lawnmower, and Sitar. I’ve probably left a few out; it’s been a while since I thought about this. Barry’s original drums were worn out, so his father purchased him a set of Slingerlands. The finish was all swirling and psychedelic, and if we wore those cheesy 3D glasses from 7-Eleven, we could see the Summer of Love a full year before it happened.
In 1966, our repertoire consisted of The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Hollies, Paul Revere And The Raiders, The Turtles, and The Byrds. We also played a handful of Beach Boy songs. Our voices were still high, so the Brian Wilson falsetto wasn’t a problem.
The 1966 Orphans in our Paul Revere boots
Unknown to Jarry and I, Barry secretly listened to weird underground music: “Frank Zappa And The Mothers of Invention.” These guys were so whacked out that the radio refused to play them, but Barry would. He adored Zappa and wouldn’t wear brown shoes in brotherhood to the song ” Brown Shoes Don’t Make It.” He was also a newbie-semi-devout disciple of East Indian music, mainly Ravi Shankar and his droning Sitar, thanks to George Harrison and the album Rubber Soul.
We knew Barry had purchased a Sitar from “Pier One,” a Dallas specialty store loved by the Hippies. The store hawked strange goods from India and the Middle East. He called one day and asked that Jarry and myself drop by to hear him play his sitar.
We were surprised when he could coax the part to “Norwegian Wood” out of the goofy instrument, so we agreed to learn the song and let him play it during our next gig at the Richardson Recreation Center the coming Saturday evening. He failed to mention that he had two additional musicians accompany him. He was a tinkerer, so he removed the electric pickups from his Gibson Melody Maker guitar and installed them on the sitar, creating the first electric East Indian instrument. Two Electrovoice condenser microphones were used to amplify his additional musicians.
Our gear was set up, and sound checked an hour before the dance, and in strolls Barry, dressed in a Nehru suit: his girlfriend and a guy about Barry’s age in tow. His followers, wearing a white Sari and a Dhoti, trolled behind him: they carried a small bongo-like drum called a Tabla and two tiny Zildjian cymbals on cute little stands. The guy was carrying an instrument that looked like a cross between a fiddle, a guitar, and a Dulcimer. All three had bright red Bindi dots on their foreheads. Barry was lugging his sitar, drum kit, and a Vox AC30 amplifier. After he set up his drums, he ran a sound check on the electric sitar and stuck the other mic inside the Tabla drum, one next to the little cymbals and the frankeninstrument. They sounded pretty good for a Rube Goldberg rigged setup. The three of us were duly impressed but leary of what might happen. Chaos followed Barry like an afternoon shadow.
The band played the first set to about 300 sweaty teenagers. The building’s air conditioning couldn’t keep up: it was a typical July in Texas.
Barry and the two musicians rolled out a Persian rug, which was likely stolen from his mother’s dining room, and positioned it in front of his drums. The girl lighted incense sticks held in large brass holders. Barry lugs his sitar from behind the stage, plugs it into the Vox amp, and sits in the traditional Shankar crossed-legged position. He is ready to rock. We break into Norwegian Wood, and the three-piece Hindi band sounds darn good but a bit loud. The teenagers move in close and surround the trio. Who are these weirdo-freaks? We finished the tune and received polite applause. A better reception than we had hoped for, but then…
For their second tune, Barry announces they will play Ravi Shankers’ biggest hit: “Beach Party On The Ganges,” a snappy little number sounding like Brian Wilson, and the boys meet Ghandi and crew for a cookout on a crocodile-infested beach. The sitar starts to feedback, and the Tabla drummer and Frankenguitar lose their tempo, not that there was one ever established, and Barry, now in a musical trance, is all over the sitar. The crowd of surrounding teens is transfixed, awed by his Zen Zone musicianship. The two other musicians, lost and toasted, have stopped playing. Lil Spector drives onward in his moment of musical adulation.
The Sitar feedback was incredible, so Barry, still locked in his “Ravi sitting position,” leaned back to reduce the volume on his amp. He leans too far, loses his balance, and falls backward, causing the head of his Sitar to catch a mic stand and break off the long body of the instrument. No one knew that Sitar strings were wound to a deathly tension. When the Sitar broke, the strings popped, winding around Barry’s head into his hair and then into his two other musicians’ long hair. It was a disaster. All three were incapacitated on the rug, unable to move. The crowd hooped and hollard, thinking it was part of the show. The poor Sitar wound up in the dumpster, and his musical disciples left the fold, throwing their red-dot makeup tin at Barry as they stormed out of the Rec Center. At his request, we dropped Norwegian Wood from our setlist.
It’s been a rough few months in the Cactus Patch. A pesky winter turned into a monsoon-like spring, and bandit Squirrels raided my bird feeders. Now, I have to contend with the sitcom on television known as politics. A demented, crooked old man holding off a bit younger old man, and one of them will wind up in the most expensive nursing home in our nation. My political wound was about healed, and now this indictment thing knocked the scab right on off, causing me extreme discomfort. Momo, my nurse wife, wants to stitch it up with sewing needles and thread. I rubbed some Whataburger ketchup on the wound and took a double shot of Irish Whiskey, and it’s healing nicely.
We took a trip to Colorado last week to visit Momo’s daughter and grandkids and sell Momo custom purses at a craft show, but that didn’t pan out. As most of you know, Colorado is one of the most liberal states in the union. California used to be, but folks moved from there to the rocky mountain high that old John Denver used to warble about. We saw plenty of trippy folks when we shopped at Sprouts for regular cereal and milk. Everyone in the store looked like models from an L.L. Bean catalog. Lots of flannel, leggings, facial hair, patchouli oil fragrance, and expensive hiking boots. We found some all-natural, gluten-free, free-range raisin brand and Tibetan goat’s milk, as well as some Mrs.Sasquatch gluten-free, sugar-free cookies. The girl at the checkout had so many piercings on her face that she looked like she took a head dive into a tackle box. She was very mountain trippiesque. The 6,588-foot altitude played hell with my breathing, so I figure most of the folks in Colorado Springs are perpetually high from oxygen deprivation, and you add weed on top of that.
I love Mark Twain. I revered him to the point that when I was a child of ten, becoming Mark Twain was my life’s ambition. Sadly for me, it didn’t work out, but he still inspires me to this day, not only with his witty writing but his keen eyes focused on the human race. Not much has changed since his days on the big river, or so I thought.
I attempted, and somewhat succeeded, to watch portions of a streaming salute to the black comedian Kevin Hart on Netflix. Filmed at the bastion of liberal theater, the elitist government-funded “The Kennedy Center.” He was being awarded with the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.
I like Kevin Hart; he’s a funny guy who is not afraid to dig into squeamish subjects. But he is strictly adult comedy: crude, foul-mouthed, racist, and mean at times. He has his place in clubs, streaming specials, and R-rated movies, not on the stage of the “Sacred Cow Kennedy Center” in front of a mixed audience of wealthy Hollywood folks jiggling their jewelry and rich old ladies who were clearly put off by the humor he and his roasting guest comedians spat out. The F word seemed to be the most favored of the night, and they all used it for maximum value.
Jerry Seinfeld, the king of clean comedy, introduced the show and praised Kevin for his body of work. Kevin, in the king and queen box, yuked it up, kissed his kids and wife, and wiped away a few tears; it was a touching tribute until Seinfeld left the stage, and that is when the show went to comedic hell in a “Jackie O Handbasket.”
I know how to cuss, learning it from my father’s side of the family and from my sainted Cherokee mother, who could string some of the better words into a formidable tirade. The F word and a few more, are in my vocabulary, and lately, watching the maddening news on television, I find myself screaming adult language at my set. But that is in my home, in front of Momo, who can cuss as well as I can, sometimes better. We don’t dare say bad words in public or in mixed company or around our family, especially the grandkids. So why is filthy, foul-mouthed thuggish language acceptable for an audience at “Jack’s Palace?” You could see Jerry Seinfeld cringe when the camera panned to him. I’m certain he has used those words, especially dealing with Kramer, Newman, and maybe the Soup Nazi.
When Hart finally took the stage to thank everyone and show his stuff, it was a recitation of F you, F this, F that, and so on: all his comedy buds in the box seats roared with approval, showing me that you can be funny, make a butt-load of money and have folks idolize you, but you that doesn’t give you class.
Hollywood and its ilk have taken what was once a reverent, respected, cherished, and Homeric award and turned it into another cheap-assed participation trophy, like the Oscar. Mark Twain deserves so much better.
Something to ponder: how did the Kardashians wish their father a happy Mother’s Day? It must have been uncomfortable.
How often does Doctor Jill check the president’s diaper?
Momo and I are going to Colorado Springs next week to see family, and she is selling her custom purses in a craft show over Memorial Day on top of Pikes Peak. The problem is that she is afraid of heights and mountains, so I will have to knock her out with a pill, drive her up to the top, and then give her another pill to wake her up. Then, repeat the process to take her back down. Hope she sells some purses in between.
It’s been a rainy week in the Cactus Patch garden. My plants are now at the “Plantzilla” stage and need trimming. Things are improving; I was stung by bitchy little bees twice and bitten by spiders of an unknown origin a few times. Now, I’m waiting for a snake bite to complete the circle. Just part of gardening in the Texas countryside.
The bird-feeding area is now a combat zone. Two flat feeders and a plastic rooftop one, and yet they fight over seeds. The Doves used to be the bully-birds, but now the Crows have claimed that title, pushing everyone around. Now, there are two Squirrels, likely siblings, that visit and eat the Peanuts that the Crows and Bluejays love and the Crows attack the Squirrels, who in turn flip the feeders and scatter the food on the gravel. The poor Cardinals and the other species sit in the trees and watch the battles. No one is starving yet, but with food as costly as a car payment, they soon may be eating bugs and wooly worms, which have invaded my landscape by the hundreds. I may catch a jar full of them and dump their wooly little selves into the bird feeders. Much healthier than all those sunflower seeds.
Now, I know that the world is off its axis: Willie Nelson is moving his famous 4th of July Picnic from Texas to somewhere in the Northeast to beat the heat. Look, Willie, the brutal life ending heat, Lone Star longnecks beer, no restroom facilities, drugged crazed hippies and cowboys are what your picnic is about. If Waylon was here, he would kick your scrawny old butt for even considering a relocation to of all places…Yankee land. Kris is still around, so he might just step in and do it. I attended one of his picnics back in the late 70s at Palo Duro Canyon and damn near expired from the hellish heat, no water and very little food. I survived by crawling under a car for shade, which at that point, it didn’t matter, my skin was roasted, and my dark hair bleached white. Around dark, ole Willie steps up to the mic and belts out Whisky River. Trigger, his beat-up Martin guitar was out of tune, his singing was off meter and he was likely higher than a California Redwood, but it was Willie, our Patron Saint of Texas Country Music. We sat transfixed on the hard dirt and rock, fire ants chewing on our legs, Rattle Snakes crawling about begging for a beer, and hundreds of poor passed out folks missing the show they came for. Please, Willie, keep it in Texas. I have confirmation from a good and mostly reliable source that your Saint Hood is imminent. This might screw it up.
Jewish Students Revolt Against Federal Protected Students
There is now a movement on most of the elite university campuses to oust and delete the fake Palestinian protesters. Two groups calling themselves “Jews For Jesus” and “Frat Boys Revenge” are now in place at most of the major universities. Maya Sharona, field correspondent for NPR interviewed a protestor at MIT.
MS: Excuse me, are you a woman or a man, It’s hard to tell with all the scarfs wrapped around your head?
Student: I am neither of those words, call me a new servant of Allah, willing to die for whatever Allah and that woman with the megaphone tells me too. Please film my left side, that’s my best profile. Should I show my molitove cocktail for the camera?
MS: Sorry, there is no camera, this is radio. What exactly are you protesting?
Student: I am not really sure, wait a moment, I must check TikTok and Facebook, all of our information and instructions comes from them. Ahh yes, here we are, (screaming)” Death to Israel, Death to all Jews, and Death to America” we demand Starbucks Latte’s and vegan pizzas, student loan forgiveness, and a free diploma in the curriculum of our choice. That’s a bummer about the no camera, got all dressed up for nothing.
MS: There is a group of frat boys over there by that police car. They look menacing and most of them are twice the size of your comrades. I believe they may be about to kick your butts.
Student: Allah and Papa Biden will protect us, we are the chosen people of Palestine, or maybe it’s Gaza, or Syria. It doesn’t matter, we are protected by the Federal Government, like the tiny fish and the lady-boys with fake boobies.
So now the Boy Scouts of America have put on their make-up, styled their hair, and inserted their tampons in the appropriate orifice.
I was a Boy Scout and a Cub Scout. My grandson was a Cub Scout and is now a Boy Scout, and my son is his troop leader. I can tell you, they are not a bunch of whiny-assed pansies like we are reading about in the news. What a disgrace to America. All those years of honor flushed like a happy bear toilet wipe.
Yeah, I get the lawsuits and all that, and the payouts, and girls wanting to be boys instead of their biological gender, and the little sissy boys wanting to be a girl scout in a boy scout uniform; it’s where the world is at this day.
How about drinking some Ovaltine, putting your hand between your legs and feeling what God gave you, and go shoot your Daisy BB gun and shut the hell up.
I am borrowing a piece of Joan Didion’s famous book title to make a point; I don’t think she would mind. I can’t ask permission because she expired in 2021, but I am a fan of her works.
After yelling and cursing the television screen for a few weeks now, thanks to the pampered and entitled Ivy League students and their new besties, the Palestinian agitators, I began to understand their imagined cause. They hate their parents, they hate their country, they hate you and me, and they hate themselves for hating everything and understanding nothing: the “everybody gets a participation trophy” generation has come of age. The soccer moms and helicopter parents created this pack of little Franken-Children, and us old folks have to suffer their folly.
I’m no Dr. Phil, (although the name affiliation is there) just an old guy that has seen a thing or three and stayed in a Holiday Inn Express a few times, although I prefer Drury Inns. This is my blog, and I can darn sure say what I please, no matter how much it offends, or not. Getting kicked off of Twitter numerous times, only makes me more insufferable.
I remember being a teenager in the turbulent sixties when protest against the Vietnam War and Lyndon Johnson were in full swing. Those were mostly students and a mix of outsiders singing songs and they carrying signs, that mostly say hooray for our side and all that Hippie Dippy Love Love Panda crap. Yes, they burned and bombed some buildings and would have lynched L.B.J. if they had gotten their THC-stained hands on him. Their purpose was to end the war, not end America. As misguided as they were, the strength in numbers and the news media’s coverage gave them a skewed and at times, misguided pulpit, and it did make a difference. Those little Hippie protesters, for the most part, grew up to be productive citizens and parents, although many of them became Devil-Dog politicians, radical teachers and Satanic university professors and they, Dear Hearts, are partially responsible for the turmoil of today. Once our boys in Washington took prayer, God and the Bible out of our schools, the Demon Brigades sallied forth, and the slow walk away from Christianity began. Thank God and Pastor Greg Laurie, it’s resurging with a vengeance never before seen in this country. Is it too little too late? Maybe for some, that are past the point of reason, their minds altered from tiny Demonic brain worms. (a cool phrase lifted from Bobby Kennedy).
Instead of carrying signs and singing songs of praise while marching toward Bethlehem, the misguided young’uns, wearing their backpack full of trophies, are slouching away towards evil.
Notes From The Cactus Patch 