Category: News Of The World

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“My Marfa Bubble Just Got Popped”


Fifteen years ago I ran across an article in “Texas Monthly Magazine” touting Marfa, Texas as the next “big deal” in the art universe. The author gushed on about Donald Judd, a prolific artist based in New York City who had moved his home base and all his toys to dusty little Marfa. Up until he arrived, Marfa was known as the backdrop for the 1956 movie “Giant.” After the article hit, van loads of weirdo artists from Austin showed up and claimed the town as their own. “Keep Austin Weird” was now “Keep Marfa Weird.” The mostly Hispanic population thought the gates for Hell had opened and released its hipster demons on their quiet township

For reasons I can’t recall, I became a bit obsessed with visiting this desert town and made myself a little Marfa bubble that grew larger with the passing years. I am also an artist and figured there was something life-altering in Marfa I needed to experience. The lure of the Big Bend desert kept calling. Time marches on and I forget about Judd and his art colony until a few years ago. I figured it was time to make the trip to Marfa.

My wife and I decided that after our summer vacation in Ruidoso, New Mexico, we would drive down to Marfa and scratch one item off of my bucket list. At my age, every trip becomes a bucket list item because my shelf life could expire any day now.

Five hours of driving through the Chiuauan desert landed us in Alpine Texas and the 1950s era motor hotel “The Antelope Lodge.” Retro doesn’t begin to describe this place. Very little updating has been done since the 1950s and the stucco cabins reek of the halcyon years of family road trips in large station wagons. I believe that the Cleaver’s may have stayed here. I can imagine The Beaver and Wally sitting in the courtyard eating Moon Pies and drinking RC Cola in the 100 degrees heat.

Marfa is a short hop from Alpine so the next morning we are on the road early, planning to catch breakfast in Marfa. I’m thinking about bacon, eggs, and pancakes Texas-style while Maureen is wanting fluffy biscuits and sausage gravy. Yum Yum.

Driving into town, the scenery is not what we expected or what I had found online. Dilapidated house trailers surrounded by broken down rusted cars line the highway on both sides. Not the best greeting for visitors. My bubble just sprang a leak.

Once in town, we realize that everything is closed. The art gallery is open on Saturday only, the Hotel Paisano lobby is closed until 5 PM, the Hotel St. George lounge doesn’t open until evening, the square is deserted and the only signs of life are some foreign tourists taking selfies in front of a boarded-up hardware store. My bubble is leaking air big time.

Now officially starving, we search for food, and found “Marfa Burritos,” the only restaurant open, and calling it a restaurant is a stretch.

Marfa Burrito dining area

A burrito is $7.00 and a warm can of Coke is a buck. What the hell, it’s food. The kitchen is located inside a ramshackle frame house; peeling paint and rotted siding give it that weathered west Texas appeal.

A young man and woman are ordering their burrito from the cook. They smell like incense and the girl has more armpit hair than the guy. I figure they must be from “El Cosmico,” the transcendental hipster enclave of yurts and vintage travel trailers that everyone online is raving about.

The outside dining area needed a little attention. A feral cat was munching on a half-eaten burrito that fell from an overflowing trash bin, and ants and flies are everywhere. I’m thinking Marfa doesn’t have a health inspector.

After breakfast, we decide to visit the Prada exhibit, which the Marfa website says is located just outside of town. Some years ago, two German artists constructed a small building full of Prada handbags and shoes in the middle of the desert, and it became the main tourist attraction for Presidio County. The other attraction is the Marfa Lights; twinkling orbs that dance around in the mountains east of town. The locals claim the lights are Aliens or maybe disgruntled Indian spirits. Some of the older folks believe they are the ghost of James Dean, Rock Hudson, and Elizebeth Taylor, the long-departed stars of the Giant movie.

We drive for twenty-minuets and no Prada. We check Google maps and find it is another half-hour’s drive to Prada. To hell with that, so we turn around and motor back to Marfa. My fifteen-year-old bubble just popped. We decide to return to Alpine, pack our gear, and head for home. No more bubbles for me.

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“A Deer Named Sweetface”


Last week was our annual summer trip to Ruidoso New Mexico. High in the Sacramento Mountains at 6500 ft. above sea level, the temperature was a pleasant 75 degrees in the daytime and a chilly low in the 50s at night compared to our 98 degrees high in Granbury Texas. I didn’t break a sweat for a week and didn’t worry about a damn thing that was happening back in Texas, although the national news covering the Afghanistan debacle gave my wife and me a few restless nights. A couple of iced tumblers of Tullamore Dew while sitting on the covered deck took the jangle off of our nerves.

Like most villages in the New Mexico mountains, Ruidoso has a large population of Deer, Elk, and wild Mustang horses. Pictured above is a local four-legged resident that took a liking to my watermelon and granola cereal. The small Doe was going gaga over the gluten-free granola, eating large handfuls from my palm. When I fed her bites of cold watermelon, well, she almost danced with glee. I was surprised how dainty her mouth was, and her gentle nibbles showed no sign of biting. She and I experienced a small mind meld and came away with a better understanding of the complicated relationship between man and wild beast. I have the food, she likes the food, I feed her the food and she likes me, and I like her too. It was illuminating, to say the least.

The picture above is when she tried to take the bowl of watermelon from my hand, or possibly give me a kiss of appreciation. Either way, she was a sweetie, and I named her Sweetface. I considered naming her Marfa, after the west Texas town we visited a few days later, but I am glad I didn’t because Marfa was a complete letdown and bubble buster. More on that experience later.

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“Everything is FUBAR”


In World War II, our servicemen had a favorite word and phrase, that summed up every situation that went off the rails; “FUBAR,” or “F..ked Up Beyond All Recognition.” Of course, in most cases, it applied to commanding officers and their incompetence that tended to get soldiers killed in battle, but it was also a favorite term used for President Roosevelt and most of Washington DC politicians. 1944 was much like 2021.

Does our military still use this term? Most likely not, since anyone caught saying it would be assigned sensitivity training or booted from service. It’s a sure bet trigger word that would send any lib worth their salt into crying gaging convulsions.

I haven’t heard the word since the movie Saving Private Ryan, and my childhood. My father a WW II vet used it excessively when I was a kid, and I never knew what it meant until I became an adult. It’s a sneaky clean way of cussing without actually saying ” the word.” As a six-year-old, I threw it around a few times and received a butt whooping from my Mother, who used the word as much as my Father but considered it unfit for my vocabulary.

Let’s see how this sounds; Joe Fubar Biden, Kamala Fubar Harris, Nancy Fubar Pelosi, General Fubar Milley, Anthony Fubar Blinken, Barrack Fubar Obama, and the list could go on for pages because the phrase fits what our politicians have done to our country.

Those small-town kids that made up our greatest generation and the most feared ass-kicking military in the world sure knew how to turn a phrase.

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“When Alice Met Arlo”


Photo by: David Crosby

Above is a picture of my 16th cousin removed, Alice B Token, taken at the famous Woodstock Arts and Music Fair in 1969.

She was working for Wavy Gravy and The Hog Farm at the time, so she was used to serving large numbers of hungry, stoned, and confused flower children.

She was the only wait staff left, after her co-workers dropped the brown acid that Wavy warned everyone not to take, so her three days of peace and harmony were a living hell; you can only serve so many needy hippies in a day.

Not one to put up with shit from anyone, she personally kicked John Sebastian’s whiny gimlet ass for saying “Wow” for twenty minuets, and pulled Grace Slicks falsies off during a cat fight over a ham sandwich. Things around the stage got a bit intense. David Crosby grabbed her ass and she whopped him with the closest weapon she could find, which wound up being Neil Young’s Martin acoustic, which was a total loss after connecting with Crosby’s head. That’s why he didn’t play with Crosby,Stills and Nash, and is not in the film. The girl grew up in Texas and was a total bad-ass; enough said.

In this pic, she is delivering sandwiches to the bands at the rear of the stage, and appears not too happy about the whole situation.

Joe Cocker, that fidgety spastic Brit dude, had requested a spam and cheese sandwich on a toasted English muffin, while Janis Joplin ordered a cheeseburger, fries and a fifth of Southern Comfort. Celebrities are so damn picky.

This is where she met up with her future husband, Arlo Guthrie, who memorialized her in his song “Alice’s Restaurant.” The one thing she came away from Woodstock with was, “those worthless smelly Hippies don’t tip shit, they don’t have any money.”

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“Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow”


We Texans can be braggarts, pompous asses, and supercilious zealots about our state, history, and traditions. To us, “everything is bigger” in Texas. I won’t deny it because it’s true.

We are divinely blessed with the big sky country, enormous cattle ranches larger than most states, the vast rolling prairies, Big Tex and the State Fair, The Fort Worth Fat Stock Show, the Big Bend National Park, big rodeos, colossal oil and gas fields, big cattle with massive horns, tall longneck beers, fat fluffy biscuits, and my favorite, “big hair.” I happen to have first-hand knowledge of the big hair phenomenon. It happened in our household.

In 1956, an artistically inclined Fort Worth beautician who happened to be my uncle figured out he could take a woman’s healthy, shining long hair and transform it into a towering monument of femininity. Teasing, ratting, poking, backcombing, and then mold the mass into a two-foot mountain of tortured follicles. To keep the sculpture in place required a minimum of one or more 16-ounce cans of flammable cancer-causing lacquer-based hair spray that was known to explode when in the vicinity of an open flame. Who knew a hair-do could be so dangerous.

It was a winning combo for the beauty shops. Women had to visit their beauticians to achieve their “big hair” style, and the shop sold the spray to hold the sculpture in place. It was a gold mine, and within six months, every beautician in Fort Worth had doubled their business and was driving a Frank Kent Cadillac. The good times were rolling, and Texas women would never be the same.

My hair-fixin uncle entered a hairstyle show in Dallas and needed a model. My mother, ever the good sister, volunteered for the job, and off the two went. But, of course, Dallas was the forbidden zone for us Fort Worth-ians, so it was a shock to the family when my mother consented to go.

As children, we had to repeat an oath, pledging never, under any circumstance, to visit Dallas, except for funerals and weddings. Then, we were told not to spend our money there, to keep it in Cowtown. Amon Carter watched over his sheep, and the Leonard Brothers needed our support.

As a cold Saturday in late December, turned to nighttime, and then late evening. My father grew increasingly worried about his wife’s whereabouts.
“How long does it take to fix some damn hair?” He said for the hundredth time. The weatherman on Channel 5 had forecast a big sleet storm that could hit at any time.

Dinner was a sack of White Castle burgers. My sister went to bed early, and I, supporting my father, sat up watching “The Mummy” on Nightmare Theater. My father was outside in the cold, pacing on the front porch, chain-smoking unfiltered Lucky Strikes and cursing Dallas.

Around 10 PM, my father joined me in front of the television as the mummy was killing his final victim with a choke-hold; the front door opened, and there stood my mother with a furry gargoyle perched on her head.

The lighting from our Christmas tree cast an eerie glow on her form. Tiny glass ornaments in her hair reflected the red and blue lights, making her an angelic Christmas version of “The Bride of Frankenstein.”

She staggers to the sofa, plopped down, and fell over sideways. My father gently lifted her to a sitting position and placed a cushion behind her back. I noticed a small pile of broken hair where her head had landed. She began to weep. There was no consoling her; the more we tried, the louder she wailed.

Uncle said a jealous competitor had switched his hair spray with a can of spray glue so the hair-do would be permanent. The good news is that they won the hair show and received a big trophy and a check.

The following day, mom left the house early. When she returned, her hair was as short as a man’s.

I was sad to see the hair-do go. I thought the tiny ornaments in her hair looked pretty cool. After all, it was Christmas time.

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I Was A 3-D Child


I saw my first 3-D movie in 1956. The House of Wax had been out for a few years, but this was close to Halloween, so the theater brought it back for an encore. My cousin Jock, Billy Roy, Georgie, my pal who was scared of everything and also our neighborhood firebug, and I rode our balloon-tire bicycles to the 7th Street Theater in Fort Worth. A ticket was 25 cents, and a Coke and popcorn were another 10 cents. We were set. The cheesy cardboard 3-D glasses were free.

I saw my first 3-D movie in 1956. The House of Wax had been out for a few years, but this was close to Halloween, so the theater brought it back for an encore. My cousin Jock, Billy Roy, Georgie, my pal who was scared of everything and also our neighborhood firebug, and I rode our balloon-tire bicycles to the 7th Street Theater in Fort Worth. A ticket was 25 cents, and a Coke and popcorn were another 10 cents. We were set. The cheesy cardboard 3-D glasses were free.

After two cartoons, a message on the screen said “put on your 3-D glasses now!” Man, we were ready. The music was scary, the credits and opening scenes were even scarier. Vincent Price looked about as evil as the devil, and the wax figures looked real, ready to jump through the screen. None of us would admit it, but we were scared to death.

Things started flying around the screen, then into the audience and over our heads. Floating orbs, spears and flying ghost. Old Vincent threw a fiery orb at the front row, and kids ran down the isle screaming, hitting the seats and falling, blind, still wearing their 3-D glasses. It was pandemonium. The manager stopped the film and brought up the house lights. That was it. How did the theater expect a bunch of little kids to react to such a weird movie?

We rode our bicycles home still wearing our 3-D glasses and looking oh so cool.

I wore those glasses for three days, and the world looked darn good in blue and red.

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“Everybody Gets A Month!”


February is African American history month, March is women’s history and Irish American heritage month, May is Asian Pacific and Jewish American heritage month, June is now Pride month (too many identifiers to call it Gay and Lesbian month any longer), September is Hispanic-Latino heritage month, October is Italian American heritage month, and lastly November is American Indian heritage month. But to list some is to exclude many. Where are the months to celebrate Caribbean, German, Scandinavian, French-Creole, or people from India? When is enough, enough?

So now friends and neighbors, June will be known as “Pride Month.” What about Juneteenth? June has always been the month for celebrating the end of slavery. Is that canceled now? I wouldn’t be surprised. Our black Americans are not going to be happy about this one. Why doe’s our government, (mostly our Democrat government) think a group of folks should get a month celebrating their sexual preference? I don’t give a tinkers-damn about who humps who, but when you try and cram this “Wokie-sock cap wearing-Birkenstock feet-hipster-skinny jean-I Phone talking-snow flake ” crap down my throat, then I get irritated. Gays can be Gays and boys can be girls and vice-versa, no problem, and most American’s feel that way. It’s not the 1950s anymore. Hell, even 40 years ago, Kermit The Frog sang about Rainbow Connections.

Old Sippy-Cup Joe, gave orders for all American Embassy’s and government buildings to fly the rainbow flag for “Pride Month.” Doe’s this include our embassy’s in Muslim countries? Muslim law and Muslim folks don’t have much love for gay and trans peoples. I’m still waiting for the news report on this one.

We can assume that this will be made law by “Old I’ll Sign Anything” Joe. Doe’s he realize the cost to change all the calender’s in this country? Just imagine; January, February, March, April, May, Pride Month, July etc. Doesn’t flow too well. For a point of argument, one could say, “well, this is harmless, let’s give those poor down-trodden folks their own month,” they deserve it. What have they done to deserve their own calendar month? The few gay folks I know, have great professional career’s and make a load of change and are definitely not down trodden.

Everyone needs their own month, so let’s make July “Grumpy-Ass Old Men” month. Us senior have to put up with this new world order, love-love Panda Rainbow crap, so give us our Du. We’ve earned it.

Dr. Gustav Scaramouch, head of Social Behavior’s Department at the Freddie Mercury Medical Institute in Queens, New York says, ” this is a slippery slope. Once we give the LGBQRSTUVWXYZ movement their own month, then we will be obliged to give other groups their own month. Our historical calendar will be decimated. Imagine starting with the first month of the year, January, will be “Black Lives Matter Month”, then February will be “Antifa” Month, then March will be “White Supremacy Month”, then April will be “Illegal Immigrants Month,”there will be no end. Then, they will come for our American Holidays. I called President Biden about this, but he was taking his fourth nap of the day and he couldn’t talk.”

How’s about we just leave things alone. It’s been working for over 200 years because our founding fathers were much smarter than us.

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Woke Me When It’s Over!


  1. ” Woke” alert to injustice in society, especially racism.”we need to stay angry, and stay woke“Definitions from Oxford Languages

The slang word “Woke.” A nice little word that has been around for a century or more has been hijacked to fit today’s political correct movement. Like most words, the history of woke is a surprisingly long one. The word was first used in the 1800s but back then, it only meant the act of not being asleep. In 2017 the Oxford Dictionary changed the definition to what it is today. I say Bullshit!, you can’t change the meaning of a word to fit a movement. Who is responsible for this? Elitist educators most likely; those self righteous idealist that are indoctrinating our children into who knows what. I thank the good Lord my boys received their education before our educators and this country lost it’s way.

Like most folks, I “woke” up this morning, had coffee and am writing this blog post. I am “woke” because I am awake, and I will stay “woke” the entire day, unless I find it necessary to take a nap, then I will “woke” up again. Be assured, there is no racism or anger in sleeping or napping.

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Your-tube, My-tube, Everybody’s Got A Tube


I’m considering starting my own YouTube channel. Why not? Everyone and their dog has one, even my eight-year-old Grandson. His channel is just starting so I am waiting to see what comical videos he post. That goofy little kid that makes videos playing with toys made 10 Million bucks last year, so Jaxson can make at least that much.

What to call it, that is the question. I could use the name of my blog; Notes From The Cactus Patch, but then it’s all writing and no videos. Who wants to read a story on YouTube? No one I know.

I’m an old dude, so I could hone in on that and make it about dealing with younger people working in retail and how they make me want to smack them, because they are ignorant, insolent and disrespectful. But then, that would make me an angry old man basically yelling “get off of my lawn you little shit.” That would give YouTube an excuse to cancel me, being their employees are all “wokies,” which is a word I made up to fit that particular sickness.

I am an artist, a painter to be exact, so I could put on my purple beret and a velvet cape and give painting lessons while speaking in a bad French accent. Now that might draw some viewers.

Gardening is my hobby, and takes most of my time these days, so I could broadcast from my garden giving tips while talking to the plants, killing bugs and fighting fungal diseases. Nothing is more educational than an old fart talking to a cucumber plant, pleading with it to grow some little veggies. On the other hand, my Tomato plants are quite informative and have told me to expect a bounty harvest in July. The Okra has yet to say one word. I think they are pissed off because I planted them too close to the Corn plants.

My hair is snow white these days, and about a month away from being able to put it in a Paul Revere And The Raiders pony-tail. It’s longer now than it was in 1970. Go figure that. I also played in a rock band up until 2019, so I could do guitar covers from my back-yard. Flay and jump like Pete Townsend with my garden in the backdrop. Of course my wife would be just off camera with an oxygen tank.That would certainly be entertaining. To my family, maybe.

I will mull this over for a while until the right formula grabs me, then you will be the first to know.

Good day, and eat your veggies.

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Faster than a speeding…


I wrote and published this story back in 2018. Any kid that has ever dressed up in a super hero costume can relate to my true experience. Thinking back to that time in the mid 1950s, I now realize my neighborhood buddies didn’t care if I died right there in front of them while attempting this stunt. We were all bullet-proof and somehow had nine lives. It was all about the show, as I soon found out.

Surfing Netflix and Amazon Prime a few nights ago, I was surprised how many movies feature superheroes. Sure, the two originals are there, Superman and Batman, but then there are at least a dozen others. Did I sleep through some cultural entertainment shift?

The original Superman television series premiered in 1952, and by 1953-54 every kid in my neighborhood pretended to fly while fighting for truth-justice-and the American way. The girls wanted to be Super Girls, but the boys wouldn’t allow it. Superman was a man’s man, so they had to settle for Lois Lane.

The family that possessed the largest television screen was the meeting point where the gang gathered to watch our hero. My Father purchased the largest black and white television available, 15 inches, so our den was the destination.

There he stood in his padded super suit, cape flapping in the wind, a steely look on his all-American face. What a man! Only years later did we notice the slight paunch, the double chin, and the bad teeth.

At Leonard Brothers department store in Fort Worth, you could purchase a genuine Superman cape for $4.00 or for $20.00, a kid could have the full outfit, which included a blue stretch top and tights, a red speedo, and super boots. The kids in our neighborhood couldn’t afford the suit, so they settled for whatever fabric they could find for a cape.

I was the lucky one. My Aunt Norma, a seamstress extraordinaire made me a custom-fit Superman suit. It was a beauty; dark blue stretchy top with little super muscles sewn in, blue tights with a red swimsuit, gold fabric covers to over my PF Flyer tennis shoes, and the bright red cape with the super “S.” I was in super heaven and the envy of all my pals. We immediately planned a flying demonstration, and I was the vehicle. Our home, the only two-story house on the block was the designated launch point.

After gathering in my den for our afternoon viewing of Superman, the gang rushed to our backyard, awaiting the flight. I sneaked upstairs, squeezed into my super suit, and slipped through a window onto the roof.

The usual gang of six had suddenly swelled to thirty or so kids of all ages. “How can I fly in front of strangers? What if the suit doesn’t work?” I was getting a severe case of “cold feet.”

The roof grew higher with every breath as I inched my way to the peak. Looking down to the yard, it may as well be the grand canyon. I was shaking like a wet dog, and a dribble of pee leaked down my leg. A kid in the crowd yelled, ” What’s wrong kid…chicken.” That did it. I was by-golly flying today.

I crossed myself and ran down the slope of the roof. A millisecond before launch, my Mother yells from the window, “don’t you dare do that.” It was too late. My six-year-old super legs launched me into thin air. I hear theme music, feel the air under my cape and below, my pals, a look of wonderment on their faces, cheer me on to super glory.

Instead of gaining height and accelerating to supersonic speed, I made it twenty feet or so then dropped straight down, landing in the midst of the admiring crowd. Our thick lawn saved me from certain paralysis.

My Mother was on me like a duck on a Junebug. Jerking me up by my super cape, she proceeds to whip my little butt with a flyswatter; the only weapon she could find. I was mortified; young Superman receiving a whooping from his super Mom. The crowd dispersed, leaving me sitting in the grass in my super shame.

The next morning; miraculously recovered, I am sent out to play with my pals. Walking through the back gate, I noticed a bit of my super cape hanging from under the garbage can lid. My super days are over.