Marshall Sartin ( deceased)—organ &vocals, Barry Corbett(deceased)—drums, vocals, and arrangements ( Lil Spector), Danny Goode — bass & Vocals, Jarry Davis—rhythm guitar & vocals, Phil Strawn—lead guitar &vocals. Backstage photo by Ansel Adams, who had been drinking Southern Comfort with Janis Joplin and the band Chicago.
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.
Here we are, nearly 60 years later, and the lyrics to his song, “What’s Going On,” have never rung truer. War, riots in the street, brother killing brother, mothers grieving over their dead sons and daughters, fathers and sons disagree over almost everything, and the socialists and foreign invaders are taking over our country. Karl Marx is celebrating in Hell along with Adolph and the rest of humanity’s demons.
I was a teenager graduating high school in the late sixties, and in that first Vietnam draft. I knew there was a good chance I would wind up in Asia, either killing to survive or being killed. I stayed in a 1-A, draft status through college, vowing that if I was drafted, I would join the Navy and follow in my father’s footsteps. Sure, it was a family thing: my great-grandfather was a Texas Ranger for a while, a deputy; my grandfather fought in the trenches of France in WWI; and my father served at Pearl Harbor in WWII. So was it expected of me to be part of what Vietnam had become? To this day, I am not sure, and age has made my memory of then cloudier than it should be. But I still remember the music that kept those young men and women over there sane. Some of it was harsh, mean, belligerent protest; much of it was peaceful, but forceful in its own way.
My wife, Momo, and I were the Woodstock generation. Me, a rock n roll guitarist, her a straight-laced, Catholic school girl, plaid skirts, fish sticks on Friday, and bruised knuckles, compliments of the nuns’ rulers: a jarringly intelligent girl with a protest gene that led her to speak her voice about the war. I wasn’t as forceful about it as she was. Now we have much of the same things Marvin Gaye sang about happening in our country. What goes around comes around, and it’s not always good.
Back then, it was us young folks against the establishment, our parents’ views, and our grandparents’ staunch loyalty to this Republic; don’t trust anyone over thirty. We didn’t see it; we were too busy being young, idealistic, and, most of the time, plain stupid about the reality of what was carrying us on top of the wave of discontent.We would give others the two-finger peace sign as we passed them by, not knowing that it meant “victory” and that Winston Churchill made it famous. Our parents had fought the evil that wanted to end America and knew, at best, it was a temporary fix. They tried to tell us, but we didn’t listen; the music and the evening news rewired our thinking, taking away our logic.
Will our grown, adult children teach their children well? Momo and I carry our own fears and insecurities from our upbringing and subliminally pass them on to our children, who will do the same with theirs. We have to ask ourselves: did we teach them well enough to overcome those moments? Will they see their parents’ hell slowly go by?
Do our children and grandchildren have the fortitude to stand up for this country and lay down their lives for the good of it? Ben Franklin was a genius when he told a woman, when asked, ” Do we have a monarchy or a Republic, he replied, “Madam, we have given you a Republic, if you can keep it.” Can we? Will we? Lord, put your divine hand on every citizen of this country and lead us to victory over the forces of evil that are real and coming for us.
This is the song that our band recorded at Summit Sounds in Dallas, Texas, in 1968. Produced by Marvin (Smokey) Montgomery and Artie Glen. Both Marvin and Artie were Light Crust Doughboys and record producers. Marvin produced the song ” Hey Paula,” and many of Delbert McClinton’s, and Bruce Channels records. Delbert played harmonica on “Hey Baby”. Artie Glen wrote the famous hit for Elvis, “Crying In The Chapel.” Bob Sullivan was the sound engineer on our record, and he also worked as the sound engineer for the Rolling Stones and a few other famous rock groups that chose to record in Dallas. The original recording featured guitars and organ, but Marvin wrote horn parts and added them later, giving it that Chicago and Tijuana Brass sound, which was just emerging around that time.
After a few months of rehearsals and gigs with our new members, Danny and Marshall, Alice, our manager, announced that she had arranged an audition for a female singer for the band. No consulting the boys on this one; it was full ahead. Alice had good ideas, so we rolled with them. She thought some familiarity would add depth and make us more audience-friendly, since we were a bunch of surly young men with longish hair and the attitude to accompany our looks.
She knew someone who had a neighbor who knew another neighbor of a family who lived next door to a lady who attended church with a woman who had a daughter who sang in the choir at school and did solos at church, so Alice, one step ahead of us, escorted her into the practice room and announced, ” Boys, this is Miss Janelle.”
In walks this teenage girl with a full-grown woman’s head of long hair piled up in a big bump on top, then falling down past her shoulders. She was a dead ringer for Bobbie Gentry. But could she sing?
A TV dinner tray sat by Marshall’s organ, used for drinks and lyric sheets, so the auditioning singer pulled from a Coppertone beach bag a few record albums, a book of lyrics, a TAB cola, and a framed 8×10 autographed photo of Bobbie Gentry. Now we knew why she looked so much like Bobbie Gentry…she dug the gal.
Danny asked Miss Janelle what songs she knew. ”
Do ya’ll know any Dusty Springfield, Petula Clark, Diana Ross, LuLu, Sonny and Cher, Marianne Faithfull, April and the Flowers, Dione Warwick, Lesli Gore, Ronnie Spector?” she asked.
Danny said, “Nope, we are a rock band, not the Ed Sullivan Show.
That kind of busted her bubble a little bit. “Well,” she says, ” How bout some Bobbie Gentry? I just love her, and she is my favorite singer in my whole life.” We had already figured that out from the picture and the hair-du.
Our inquisitive drummer, Barry, interrupted her: “Isn’t that the song where she and the boyfriend throw a baby child off a bridge into the muddy river?”
Miss Janelle whirled around and yelled, ” No, moron, she didn’t throw no itty-bitty-baby off a bridge; it was a bouquet of Mississippi wildflowers to solidify her big love for her man Billy Joe Macallister, but then he got caught dating his auntie’s pet sheep, causing him to jump off the old bridge into the muddy Tallachee River. Bobbie sent me a letter, along with this picture, explaining the whole song, but I promised to keep it a secret. We’re friends, you know.”
She thinks hard for a minute, then says, ” The only Rock-N-Roll song I know is Gracie Slick’s Somebody To Love. Ya’ll know that one?” We sort of knew it, so we gave it a go.
The lass let loose and was jumping around like Tina Turner, hair flying everywhere, strutting and shimmying, doing the Bug-a-loo, the Monkey, the Watusi, and a few others while singing. When we ended the tune, Marshall, our organ player, was staring her down with those big pansy-boy watery Puss-N-Boots eyes. He clearly had a severe case of the “Hubba Hubba’s” for this gal. Danny told us that this happens about once a week, and he will be alright once he gets home and eats his mama’s hot supper. Alice announces she is marvelous and is now part of the band. Okey-dokey.
At the next rehearsal, Miss Janelle comes in with red eyes and mascara trails down her cheeks. All sniffily and weepy, she says, ” My boyfriend said I can’t sing with a bunch of degenerate rock musicians. We are in love, big-time, and I must quit the band now.” Still in the grip of the Hubbas-Hubbas, Marshall puts a consoling arm around her shoulders and tells her, “It can’t be all that bad.”
She barks at him, ” Shut up, Moon Doggy….It’s my party, and I’ll cry if I want to.”
And with that, she packed her Coppertone beach bag with her albums, lyrics book, TAB cola, and the autographed picture of Bobbie Gentry and left, leaving the air heavy with teenage perfume, hair spray, and juicy fruit gum. Then…..More to come in my series.
After the family moved from Fort Worth to Wichita Falls for six painful months and then to Plano, Texas, I met a classmate and fellow guitar player who was also bitten by the “rock-a-rolla” bug. He knew another guy on his block who played guitar and owned a Fender Bassman amp, which automatically made him a band member, and he knew a neighbor across the street who was a drummer with a snare and one cymbal. He also knew a kid with another cheap Japanese guitar who would part with it for $10.00. I snatched it, bought his Sears amp for another $15.00, and was back in “the biz.” Hours of practice produced twenty songs, which we could repeat at least once or twice by shuffling them around and changing singers and keys. Our first gig was at the Harrington Park Swimming Pool, Plano, Texas, in the early summer of 1965.
Guitar tuners hadn’t been invented yet, so we used a pitch pipe and got as close as possible to A440, and apparently it wasn’t close enough; we sounded like hammered Raccoon crap on grandma’s china plate. It was a humiliating experience. In my playing frenzy, I broke my B string and had to play with five strings. Then our amplifiers went south because the outside temperature was over 100 degrees and we were in the direct sun. Then, the drummer’s head on his snare split, his cymbal fell over and cracked, and Jerry Nelson, another guitar flanger, tripped on an extension cord and fell flat, damaging his Silvertone guitar. Our third guitar player, Warren, came into contact with water splashed from the pool onto the concrete while touching the strings of his electrified, ungrounded guitar, resulting in a bad electrical shock. Hair frizzed out, smoking from his ears, and burns on his fingers; he finished the gig, not knowing who or where he was. The grand debut ended with sympathetic applause, and the pool manager refused to pay us, even though our contract stipulated free burgers and shakes. Warren, our previously electrocuted guitar player, got into a fight with our drummer, and the two rolled around in the gravel parking lot for a while with no clear victor. We thought Warren was a trooper, considering the amount of electricity that had almost fried him an hour before. Bad music tends to piss folks off. The final curtain was when my pal Jarry discovered his Mustang had a flat tire, so we had to call our parents to rescue us. Welcome to the rock n’ roll music business.
From 1966 into 1967, the band continued with better gear, a new drummer and bass player, and a different name. We were now known as “The Orphans.” A strange pick since we were all middle-class guys with full sets of parents, but Barry Corbett, our drummer, thought it sounded tough and a bit rebellious. Barry may have been the biggest rebel of the four members, listening to Frank Zappa and Spike Jones and teaching himself to play the Sitar. George Harrison’s influence led him into the realm of Indian music, which he fully embraced to the point of obsession. He developed a strange Peter Sellers-type accent, wore a red dot on his forehead, and had two high school girls follow him around town, wearing white robes and playing with small cymbals attached to their fingers. He was also a rudderless musical genius and would soon lead us into the semi-big time and the really big show.
Alice Davis, Jarry’s mother, was now our official manager and did a wonderful job. She knew people and had connections and was not afraid to use them or to press a business contact into hiring her band. We were booked around Dallas and Fort Worth most Friday and Saturday nights. We made some good cash from high school kids, but spent it all on new equipment and clothing. Band members were in constant rotation. Teenage musicians proved to be an unreliable commodity.
Our keyboard and bass player left us for high school football, again, leaving three of us. Calls went out, Alice worked the phones and contacts, and we auditioned two musicians from McKinney, Texas. Danny Goode, a bass player/singer and former member of the Excels, and Marshall Sartin, church organist, classically trained pianist, and blues guitar player. We played a few songs as a five-member band and almost passed out. It was as if the ghost of Phil Spector had brought us into that practice room at this appointed time in the universe, which was strange because Spector was still alive and kicking in Los Angeles.
Miss Alice was religiously overcome with musical emotion and experienced a spell of the rock n’ roll vapors that led to seating herself with a double Jack Daniels and branch water. Barry, our drummer and musical genius, had an epiphany and went to work on arranging our music and vocal parts, showing Marshall how to play them on his Farfisa Organ, which was another strange thing; Jarry and I didn’t know Barry could play the piano, or, as we soon found out, the guitar, the trumpet, the sax, or the vibes. We dubbed him “Lil Spector” in honor of the famous Wall of Sound producer.
After the Miss Janelle Bobbie Gentry-infused tenure that ended in a puff of hairspray and perfume, the band took a vote: no females allowed. Marshall was still recovering from a severe case of the Love Fever Hubba Hubba’s, and we needed him in good condition for our upcoming gigs.
Miss Alice grew weary of working the phones, dealing with clubs and booking gigs, her realty business was suffering and needed her attention. She arranged for us to be managed by an upstart agency called Mark Lee Productions of Dallas, Texas. Mark was a go-getter and had more connections than Bell Telephone. His one and only main band, Kenny And The Kasuals, had just released a great 45 that was climbing the charts, so we were excited about working with him. We signed on the dotted line of a ten-page contract that not one of us read. Why bother? We were young and full of piss and vinegar: point us in the direction of the stage and plug us in!
Within twenty-four hours, The Orphans were booked into some of the hottest venues in the DFW: The Studio Club, LuAnns, The Pirates Nook, Phantasmagoria, Teen A-Go-Go, and The Box in Fort Worth. Mark Lee was turning down gigs because he had only two bands. We wouldn’t have Friday and Saturday nights free for two years, and even less free time in the summer, when bookings took up most of each week.
We were booked to play a Christmas party for Parkland Hospital at the famous Adolphus Hotel in downtown Dallas. Pulling up to the front in our 57 Caddie Hearse caused a stir. The bellman politely told us the bodies were picked up at the rear. We got the joke and proceeded to the loading docks. The party turned out to be for the doctors, nurses, and administration folks. In the next ballroom, Braniff Airlines was having its Christmas party, but with no band. It didn’t take long before the airline parties spilled over into the hospital party, and that’s when it got crazy.
These people, supposedly responsible adults, were dancing on the tables, had a conga line going on the bar top, and we had our own go-go dancers on either side of the stage. Three of us were under the age of 18, but that didn’t stop the inebriated partiers from pumping us full of hooch in the form of cute little airline bottles. By the last set, we had gone from charming and talented to stupid drunk and were glad the gig ended. We couldn’t locate our keyboardist, Marshall, so we loaded up his gear and headed out. He showed up a few days later with some dumb-assed story he couldn’t talk about: the Hubba-Hubba’s got him again.
More to come in Part 3
Being a native Texan is a damn challenge, and not every one of us can pull it off without a series of small nervous breakdowns, panic attacks, and, of course, a few bottles of coldbeer (it’s considered a form of cultural blasphemy to pronounce it as two words in Texas). So, we tend to meld our words into one; it makes it easier to speak without sounding like a high roller walking around in high cotton. We do have our own language down here in the Lone Star State.
I consider writing my job now, perhaps my trade. So far, I’ve not made a nickel for any of my literature, possibly because it’s about Texas, my childhood, country music, and all the characters I’ve met along my journey on the lone prairie. There is a book of short stories in the works, but an addled mind has a problem picking out twenty of the four hundred I’ve written over the decades.
Gardening was a passion for a while; I became a master gardener and imagined my landscape to equal George Harrison’s Friar Park or Martha Stewart’s backyard. It’s too hot in this part of Texas to keep anything alive, so all of my plants are expiring, begging for me to put them out of their misery. I had a small service for two purple Salvias this morning, and last night, I saw another Rat at our bird feeder. Momo would cook for the little Avians every morning if I didn’t stop her.
Music would be my other pursuit of happiness. Still, I mostley play with our church band, which is primaraly worship songs: ain’t no Amie, The Weight, or Like A Rolling Stone getting played in the sanctuarary, even though we have the intrumentation to pull it off, and some of the musicians actually can play that type of music, mostley myself since I am the oldest old codger on stage and the rest of the bunch is in their 40s, and that leaves me as the “old relic from another era, the Woodstock generation, that played Hendrix and The Band, and tried to change the world, but failed miserably and had to go back home with our collective tails between our legs. Our parents laughed, “See, you stupid ass, we told you so.” They were half-right.
My main interest now is Mandolin: bluegrass, jazz, country, the music played by Ricky Skaggs, Sierra Hull, Mike Marshall, Sam Bush, Molly Tuttle, and Billy Strings, and of course Bill Monroe.
When I was a wee child, maybe five, my father brought home a tater-bug mandolin, likely given to him by a musician friend. I learned four or five two-finger chords, and then grew bored with the instrument: Cartoons were more interesting. My father was a professional country fiddle player, so he should have whooped my butt and made me stick with it, but my mother intervened. One musician in the home was more than enough. Now, that I’m older and bored with the guitar I’ve been playing since the age of twelve, I’ve gone back to the Mandolin and fiddle. I’m much too far down that rabbit hole to stop, and Momo, my wife, says it’s the only thing, except a trunk full of medications, keeping me alive: she is always right. If I stopped playing, within twenty-four hours I would assume room temperature and the paramedics would have to bag me and haul me away. So, I keep playing and writing. It’s a vicious circle, one that I created for myself. There is no escape, and I can’t take it with me when I go, and neither can any of you reading this. Everything stays here except your new suit and no shoes.
We are taking a road trip to Mount Rushmore in September, and I hope that seeing those big faces, Custer’s Last Stand, and maybe Yellowstone will revive us and add a few more years on our punch card. I plan to watch Not by Northwest before we go, so I can see how I could climb on Teddy Roosevelt’s nose and not fall off. I also have plans to run with the Bison, which is the newest form of self-destructive dopamine hits that old folks do these days. I’ve always wanted to pet a Buffalo, or a wolf, so this will be my chance.
I’m no travel writer or influencer, so don’t expect anything spectacular or even interesting when we return. I may do a Podcast full of rants, but that would be it. God Bless the Alamo and Texas.
The Texan
I lifted the title line from Mac Davis’s hit ” Looking At Lubbock In My Rear View Mirror.” He’s gone for a while now, so I don’t think a fellow Texan would mind.
As this year slipped by, I want to thank all of you who follow my blog and comment. I’m too computer-challenged to thank an entire list like Max, so this will have to do for now. I’m hiring a six-year-old down the street as my PC tutor.
Who would have thought that our country would be in such an uproar about every darn thing anyone could dream up, but here we are.
I think Mark Twain says it best: No matter how healthy a man’s morals may be when he enters Washington politics, he comes out again with a pot-marked soul. Makes you wonder if any of those flamboyant bastards will ever make it to Heaven? I certainly hope they find the Lord, but I still don’t care to patronize them when I get there. Sort of like a high school reunion: I wasn’t buddies with you then, so what makes you think I want to hang out with you now?
All of these privileged, university-educated white kids running around carrying signs, wrapping their heads in checkered tablecloths, and throwing objects at our Jewish Americans and our underpaid and overworked police. They seem to be mostly young white women, so that doesn’t say much for the future of marriage and child production for the good old U.S.A. Did they learn this behavior at home, or are they so misinformed and ignorant that they follow any evil cause that greets them when they wake up in the morning? Not enough caffeine, and too much weed, will alter one’s consciousness and turn their brain to nursing home gruel. They need a good ass whooping with a Mesquite Tree switch, and then give the same to mommy and daddy, and maybe the grandparents as well. Sort of reminds me of the sixties and the young folks protesting on college campuses, in between cum-by-ya campfires, pot parties, and humping like wired up Rabbits, but at least then, they had a real cause, like the Vietnam War and their dislike for LBJ and Goldwater. It got messy and dangerous at times, like in Chicago in 1968. The National Guard against the radical students at Kent State University brought it all to a nasty head, and the protest dwindled after that, but the well-informed students and older Americans did make a difference, and the average law-abiding citizen did listen and learn. I was fresh-squeezed out of high school in 1969, waiting for the draft board to send me to Asia, and a long-haired, rock ‘n’ roll-playing musician. I put myself right in the midst of that mess, but refused to buy into the radical side of it. You could call me an anomaly of sorts. Conservative before it was cool to be. I felt that my stance on things had brought my depression era Roosevelt-Democrat Kennedy-voting parents over to the other side, changing coats in the winter of chaos. My father became so conservative that he couldn’t force himself to make a left turn when driving, so many days he drove in circles or took hours to reach his destination. I am not kidding.
September 10, 2025. Free speech and Christianity in America: do we still have it? Charlie Kirk certainly thought so and put it into practice in a brilliant way that no one in the media would have thought possible. Now we have little trophy-winning kiddos like those I described in the paragraph above, thinking they can assassinate someone because they don’t like their speech or ideas on religion. One more trophy his parents can add to his childhood bedroom shelf, next to his Star Wars posters and action figure collection. They must have missed the weapons stored under his trundle bed.
Christianity. I am a Christian, proud to be so, and I will tell anyone, anytime, that I follow Jesus Christ and his teachings. As a child, I was dunked and baptized so many times that my hair smelled like river water, and I learned to swim. Dear Hearts, we are under attack most cruelly. Our attackers are Islamic, and our castrated politicians have given them total approval to rid our country of us Christians. Maybe we Christians should take matters into our own hands and rid our country of both. I might write more about this, but the time feels off today. Besides, I have to clean my guns and go buy some ammo before The Walmart stops selling it as well.
The NFL. Once again, the Dallas Cowgirls have blown another season. It’s been thirty years since old Jerry has been within sniffing distance of a Super Bowl trophy. One more thing: why is it called the Super Bowl? What’s so super or special about it? Just another game with self-serving, overpaid, obnoxious young men. And of course, Taylor Swift is in the stands with her five patented facial expressions. I don’t watch football anymore; it gives me a headache like the one I got the one time I listened to Taylor Swift sing one of her cartoon music songs. I had to take a Valium IV drip to get over that one.
I promised my wife, Momo, that I would refrain from writing about politics, and for a year now I have kept my word. It’s often maddening to refrain from grabbing the laptop and cutting loose. Let me say this: New York City electing a Muslim mayor who is a proud socialist and follower of Islam has sealed the fate of this once great city. In the near future, maybe weeks, we will be reading of large corporations and average citizens vacating to the south, mainly Texas, Florida, Oklahoma, and a few other states. I will welcome them to my small town of Granbury. One condition is that they must not bring their East Coast attitude and lifestyle with them and expect to survive in Texas. Fancy Italian olive oil suitable for bread dipping, and Texas spring branch water don’t mix. Driving through town a few days back, I saw a Tesla with New York plates, and it had a sofa, a chair, and other pieces of modern furniture tied to the roof; the only things missing were Granny and Elle Mae sitting in rockers. The exodus and invasion have begun.
I’ve received a sack full of mail and numerous emails from all over the country addressed to my Ask A Texan advice column, so there will be more of those posted soon. I can assume that, since Ann Landers is no longer around, folks think an old Texan can help them navigate this mess. Being a senior member of The Sons of The Alamo Lodge was the catalyst, and being a student of the revered Texas “word slinger” J. Frank Dobie inspired me to help, or at times, hinder others with often good but sometimes questionable down-home advice. See you later this year.
Bob was a restless cat. His hair was longer and wilder now. Minnesota was a dream or at best, a faded picture on a postcard from home. The Martin guitar didn’t do it for him anymore, nor did Pete, Woodie, or Joan. He hooked up with some Canadian boys with electric guitars and organs and traded the acoustic for a Fender Strat and a Super Reverb Amplifier. He was hip…he was in the scene…current and cool. He was tired of writing songs about nothing that seemed like something after a few bottles of wine and some grass. All these young hippie kids thought he was the Messiah of music..the second coming, he tried walking on water and almost drowned, all for believing the hype. He was done. Joan B. was clingy, handsy, folksy, and too natural for his taste. She didn’t shave her armpits or legs and he was sick of her traditional whiney folk music. He had been to Monterey and played grab-ass with Janis. New York can go to hell. He was going to Nashville and pick with them cats that played cool as country water. Chet Atkins invited him to dinner. Johnny Cash invited him into the fold. He was sold on country cooking and Gibson guitars. Nashville Skyline was his opus. Cash led him to the promised land. He found Baby Jesus in a snow globe at the Bluebird Cafe. He put the Menorah in his pantry and laid out the “Good Book” on his coffee table, next to the crystal ashtray and his roll-your-own cigarettes. Bob was a Christian now, his Jewish days behind him for a while, but he would revisit them often. Joanie wanted a rematch..said she would be less competitive and write even crappier songs, Bob said no way, he couldn’t take another round of her. He thought about buying another motorcycle, but just for a minute. Naw…I don’t need another broken neck and leg. He purchased a machine gun in case the Black Panthers came to Woodstock, he would be ready. He wrote ten thousand songs and won the Pulitzer Prize. He kept the money. His son, Jacob is too hip and hangs out with girls from Laurel Canyon that have no talent for anything except spending his money and wailing. Bob tells him to get a haircut and a real job, he is now his own father back in Minnesota. Bob sells his song catalog for a Billion dollars to a group of Japanese. He’s flush with cash. He calls Paul and Ringo and tells them to stick it, he’s richer than they are now. Paul writes a song about it. Ringo sends him some Kale cupcakes. He revisits the Village. All the old hangouts are now fast food joints and iPhone shops. He walks the street, but no one recognizes him..he’s good with that. His cell phone rings, it’s Joan B., and she wants to meet for a salad and mineral water lunch. He wants a burger, he tells her he loves meat, and she gags and pukes on her Samsung phone. Bob laughs and walks into McDonalds for a Big Mac. The girl behind the counter asks him if he’s that guy on that “Survivor.” TV show. He says “No, I am a survivor.”
The heart monitor returned to the Cardiologist, leaving me with a week to ponder the worst. Momo, my wife, the former Cath-lab heart nurse, was as worried as I was. She said that if the doctor had found anything unusual on the monitor, he would have called with the bad news. That somewhat calmed me down. Janice Joplin was waiting in the wings.
Dr. Squatch, my Cardiologist, is somewhat of a comedian and should be on stage in his spare time. He enters the room like Kramer on the Seinfeld show, bursting through the door in a whirl of energy. Momo and I had been sitting and waiting for an hour and were half asleep.
“Here’s the good news,” he says. ” You have about forty percent blockage, and for a guy your age, that’s not too bad, but plaque will be plaque, and a piece could break away and travel a bit and give you a massive heart attack or a dandy of a stroke. The bad news is that with your family history of heart problems, you are a good candidate for La La Land. Enjoy your bourbon while you can.” I certainly will. It looks like old, ghostly Janice Joplin will have to wait a bit longer.