John Prine’s words remind us that nothing is impossible…
My… my, look how things have changed. Kid Rock, a lifelong Christian, and a newly converted Christian, Eminem, are collaborating on a new Christian-themed album. Take that Swifter and her little minions, Godless imitators. That’s the way the world goes round, as John Prine once said. The music business isn’t quite dead just yet. It will likely be recorded in Nashville with a slew of good country musicians, and John Rich and possibly Ella Langley are rumored to be involved.
When it comes to God, you are either with him, or you’re not; there isn’t an in-between bar to set up and have a beer while you wait to see if the Holy Spirit hits you. Both have said controversial things in the past, but people change as they age, realize their mistakes, and repent. I’m not easily surprised, but this one caught me napping.
Ain’t talking about the Queen song either…This is not a political post, just telling you about a fool
The Dixie Chicks, Maren Morris, Kacy Musgraves, Garth Brooks, The Jelly Roll, and now Zach Bryan, a unique club of country music losers. Entertainers need to shut up and sing their little songs, collect their cash, and get back on the tour bus to the next city. The fans don’t pay for your political stands. I think Springsteen and Mellencamp finally figured that out. Hollywood is starting to realize that.
Country music fans aren’t usually very liberal, and if they are, they keep it close to their tool shed. Now we have country star Zach Bryan, a huge arena-filling star, a Navy veteran, purposefully giving himself the Bud Light Award. I liked the guy’s music, not that much, but he was one of the many run-of-the-mill country artists who sing about pickups, beer, and girls and such, but he just put a big X on his career. I don’t agree with everything Israel does or says, but they are God’s chosen people and our allies, and Hamas came over from Gaza and killed thousands of young Jewish teens and families, about the same age as his core audience, and he wears a “Free Palestine” T-shirt while on stage at Gillette Stadium. Has this man had a mental breakdown, or has he listened to Garth Brooks too much? He’ll likely get a call from John Rich, Kid Rock, Ella Langely, the ghost of Hank Williams and Chet Atkins, and his record company any day now. Bye-bye baby.
I haven’t attended the State Fair of Texas in a decade or more, and I don’t intend to anytime soon. I don’t like crowds with guns and am afraid of getting caught in a gang crossfire. Eating a Fletchers Corn Dog ain’t worth the risk.
One highlight of my visit when I was young, besides watching the hoochi-cootchi dancers and seeing Bonnie and Clyde’s death car, was listening to Big Tex, the 55-foot-tall talking cowboy, say, “Howdy folks, welcome to the State Fair of Texas.” For decades, he wore Dickies western clothes, size “G” for giant, though now he wears Cavender’s western wear, and a Resistol Hat completes his wardrobe.
The picture above isn’t Big Tex; it is puny-assed James Talarico on his state fair day, thinking he’ll soon be the new Big Tex in town. In Fort Worth, I see a lot of young women and their mothers dressed like that: blue-jean too-short shorts or skirts, boots, halter tops, and hats; it’s a Texas thing: watch Taylor Sheridens “Land Man,” filmed in Fort Worth, and you’ll see. He’s not married, no girlfriend, no kids, no dog, nothing, and he drives a tiny electric Prius, except in his TV commercials, where he drives a rented pickup truck and wears jeans and boots, so he was likely alone or with someone on his staff, or worse. He would be a big hit in the Oak Lawn area of Dallas.
He is a confused Democrat running for the Texas Senate against Ken Paxton, who ain’t no angel either, and claims to be a New Age Christian, a New Age Pastor, a New Age man of God, plus a hero to working-class Texans. He throws around lofty claims, but not all of them hold up. He believes there are six genders, God is non-binary, and Christianity has got it all wrong; his way is better than God, Jesus, and the Bible. His way must be one hell of a book.
He was an educator for a time, then served in the Texas House, and then attended Divinity School and Harvard. He also graduated from the University of Texas in Austin, which says a lot about this weirdo and how the school and the city indoctrinated him. Even Wavy Gravy, the old hippy of Woodstock fame, said in an interview that Austin, its hipsters, and its old hippies, who came there in the 60s and never left, were too much for him, and that he and his Hog Farm group fed the folks at Woodstock and gobbled up all the brown acid Arlo Guthrie said to stay away from. I’m with Wavy on this one.
Most of us Texans don’t consider Austin, and its inhabitants, part of our state; Houston and Dallas come right behind it. I lived 30 or so miles north of Austin in Georgetown for three years, but the city had the good sense to erect a 10-foot electrified fence around it to keep out the Austinite Artistic Radicalized Whole Food fed Zombies; now they have made their way to one of my favorite places, Marfa, way out in the Chihuahuan Desert in far West Texas, and the folks out there make sure they don’t stay more than a few months: they have their ways to oust them, but keep it a secret. The fellow at the front desk of the Hotel Piasano wanted to tell me, but was skittish about it. I’ll find out from my buddy Sagebrush Sonny on my next trip to Planet Marfa, my favorite bar, if he’s still alive. The last time I saw him, those damn nucleurized, mean-as-hell Chihuahuas that inhabit the desert chewed off his good arm, and now he’s down to one good leg, a wooden leg, a gimp arm, and uses a straw to sip his beer. He needs to stay out of the desert. But no, he had to help that poor, misguided, dysfunctional family from Lake Minitonka, Minnesota, set up camp in the desert. I wrote about the incident in an earlier story.
I would love to see this Talarico cat debate my Pastor at church about the Bible and the Word, and try to explain the six genders and the non-binary God and all the LXJBQ crap he believes in. It would be as fun as a WWF cage fight against a confused Demon.
Three straw-hatted robots pose with landscaping tools outside a Home Depot store.
With all this talk about AI taking away the techie jobs, I saw three (illegal impostors) day-laborer robots in front of Home Depot this morning, waiting to be picked up for work. Since ICE is in Granbury, I’m not sure how they’ll handle these guys. George Jetson and Will Robinson had it pretty darn good.
Three singers perform as The Supremes before an enthusiastic audience at a formal concert.
Now the ballless, gutless, spineless, poisonous, un-Christian, treasonous, Birkenstock, sock-cap-wearing, Ozempic-shooting, non-singing Supreme Court has lost its tune, and even Diana Ross or Auto-Tune can’t save it. They blocked, after it was passed and signed, the mail-in vote for the midterms, guaranteeing widespread fraud and cheating by the demonic Democratic Party. Obama and Biden have a radical, paid-for judge in every court in the land thanks to Soros, Meta boy, and a host of other tech maggots. Jumanji Jackson, or whatever her real Biden autopen-appointed judge name is, and Bret Kavanaugh, yes, the one the conservatives saved his sorry ass from fake rape allegations, voted to halt it. What a bunch of pussies we have in our government. Now, the women in the pink kitty kitty hats want to erect a statue in Times Square to honor the child murderer Lindsey Clancy, and by God, it will likely be done. And Charlie Kirk’s statue has been vandalized many times by liberal young white women driving Subaru SUVs and wearing flannel shirts. Ericka Kirk has the film that will never see the TV screen; bet your happy ass on that.
I was at the Home Depot today searching for a weird screw for Momo’s leather punch. The guy who helped me, around 60 years old, is a native New Yorker who recently moved here to Texas because his daughter married a Texan. He said it was the best decision of his life: to hell with New York, Mamdami, and his commie minions. I gave him a traditional Texas welcome: I showed him my horse in the trailer behind my pickup truck, bought him a BBQ sandwich, and taught him how to shoot a 45 caliber Colt pistol at the grouchy shoppers in the hardware aisle. He said that’s why he liked Texas; we are all street-rat crazy.
The girl on the left on the horse is Beth Dutton; Roy Rogers and his dog, Bullitt and Trigger; and Dolly Parton playing the guitar on her horse. That’s me in the ATV.
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. Pretty darn sure they will enjoy the ghost of Dolly Parton singing to them, as well as Beth Dutton and Roy Rogers, Trigger and Bullitt the dog: Dale and Pat or Sky King couldn’t make it this year.
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.
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?
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?
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.
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.”
