I used to say that I’m from Texas and quite proudly…but that was a looooong time ago. Why? Well, for one, the entire fucking state is full of bigoted, mean spirited, misguided, small minded thugs. Sure they say that they’re good Christians but really, fuck this and fuck them. They’re no more good Christian than I am and I’m totally not.
Article recently mentions that the Texas Republican party has started a campaign against the speaker of the house. Not too weird as Republicans are trying to overthrow everything and everyone pretty much everywhere. The bad thing is that they’ve started this campaign against the speaker because he’s Jewish. They want to have “a true Christian” leader and that the Christians “do the best job ever”.
28(!) years ago I was in a record store in Nacogdoches, Tx pretending to be attending Stephen F. Austin State Univeristy. Mostly I was just theredrinking beer, hanging out at the fraternity house, going on drunken road trips to Dallas and Houston and just generally being a layabout. But I was having fun.
Being the totally cool guy that I was, I hung about in the record store alot. Whilst browsing around in this record store, I heard something that probably wasn’t as joyful as say, a farting god, but it was pretty close. I stopped what I was doing, flipping through the albums trying to look cool and trying not to see who was looking at me the totally cool guy, and listened. I coolly sauntered up to the counter and said something like, “Hey man, that’s a righteous tune playing on the system. I dig it, who is it man?” (I was DOWN with it, you know?)
I’m sure the clerk, who was obviously much, much cooler than I, sneered at me and maybe even spit before telling me that it was R.E.M. Pronouned as one word not the letters. ”Yeah man it’s totally rim. Yeah, we’ve been listening to them for ever here.” “Yeah man, that’s like really cool you know. So yeah, where’s the album. I totally don’t have this one”
I bought Chronic Town.
My life took a hard left turn then, musically. And kind of generally.
At the time, I was just your average suburban teenage kid. Black Sabbath, Rush, Yes. The usual suspects. Nothing different because, hey that would be you know, different.
Chronic Town is still one of my favorite albums of all time. It was new, it was different, it spoke to me. Depending on the amount of beer and illegal substances it spoke differently sometimes. But it spoke. I listened. You can too. Here’s a few videos of songs from the album. Now you can be cool like me without having to hang around the record store and look silly. I’ve taken care of that for you and looked silly enough for both of us.
I kind of dig traveling. Who doesn’t right? Well, maybe some of you homebody’s who would miss the Dukes of Hazard reruns for your nightly dose of culture. For those of us who have moved past the General Lee, the world is at the very least an interesting place. With that in mind here’s a quick list of places I want to go and some that you and your mother probably couldn’t drag me to.
Places That I Want To Visit
1. Paris – I’ve been there. I want to go back. Long a dream of mine, my parents surprised my wife and I with a trip about 10 years ago. Three or four days in London and the same for Paris. London was great and it was a city I had always wanted to visit. Paris on the other hand was beyond great. Paris was without a doubt the trip that was the highlight of my life to that point. Marriages and births not withstanding. Paris was foreign, Paris was not foreign, it was culture, life, modern, new, old, fantastic. It was Paris. I want to live there.
2. Amsterdam – Not for the pot. Seriously. Amsterdam seems to me to be a place, like Paris only more so. With Paris I could understand and read the language, just not speak it very well. Amsterdam? Who in the hell can understand Dutch? Maybe some other Dutch I guess, so yeah there’s that but not me. And I love that. Also very cool art and history and beer. So there’s that.
3. Germany – Pretty much anywhere in Germany. The countryside? Sure. The cities? Of course. My favorite artists and cars generally come from Germany. Not to mention some fine beers.
4 – 6. San Francisco, Portland, Seattle – I’d like to do a west coast tour. Especially Portland and Seattle. Seems to me that the cities are cool. Not just in a weather kind of way, but in a hep way. Kansas City has fucking barbecue. The rest of the world has culture. Seattle and Portland seem to represent everything that Kansas City isn’t.
7-9. Montreal and Toronto – Europe without going to Europe. Of course this is all based on nothing that I can speak of in a concrete manner, but still…
Some places that I don’t want to visit
Mexico – I’d prefer not to get caught up in a drug war and chopped up, put in a barrel and dumped in a ditch. I can probably do that in some parts of Kansas City.
Pretty much anywhere in South America except for Chile and Bolivia. Of course I don’t know but seems like they have some fairly cosmoplitan cities. The rest of the countries have drug wars. I’ll pass.
The southern United States (and I’m from Texas) – Recently the south seems to have lost it’s collective mind. Apparently to live in the south means that you have to become a hyper religous, intolerant, badly educated, George Bush loving ass. Missouri is only marginally better. Marginally.
I used to live in Texas and when I moved to Kansas City I was still quite proud of being raised in Houston. I used to fly the Texas flag on a flagpole outside our house every chance I got. I didn’t salute it or anything, cause that would be, you know…stupid or something. But yeah, I was one of those Texans who believed that you never really left Texas, you just were somewhere else temporarily until your mind was right again and you could return home.
That being said, Texas sucks. Seriously, Sucks.
It’s bad enough that the Governor of Texas is spouting gibberish about leaving the union because he’s all mad at Obama. His guy didn’t get elected so he’s not playing anymore. Cry me a f’ing river.
There are lots of other reasons why Texas sucks but the latest is that the cops can now draw blood from people that they stop, for just about any reason.
The way it stands now, a person involved in an accident will automatically have his or her blood drawn if they’re involved in an accident where there’s a death or serious bodily injury. However, Senate Bill 328, which passed in the last Texas legislative session, means that anyone involved in a crash, whether they’re suspected of drunk driving or not and where there’s bodily injury, severe or not, or has a child in their car, or previous D.W.I. convictions, will have blood drawn automatically within a matter of minutes.
I’m sorry, but excuse me? You, Officer Littledick are going to draw blood from me because the lady on the cellphone in front of me and I had a fender bender at the stop light? Um…no. Thank you very much.
Seriously, what happened to presumed innocent? Where in the hell do these brainless twits who decide that they’re doing this for the “public safety” think they live?
I’m sure that the god fearing “christians” who live in and run Missouri have just pissed themselves at the thought of this. And the fine, upstanding citizens of Missouri will allow this shite to happen because “won’t someoone think of the children” or “it’s for the best”.
It’s the erosion of civil rights like the right to be presumed innocent that causes me to become scared and angry. Our citizenry doesn’t a.) have the balls to do anything about it. We have to rely on people like the A.C.L.U. to stand up for us because we have no spine and b.) couldn’t be bothered to care. We as a people really, really don’t care. As long as it’s not happening to us, then it really doesn’t matter.
We get what we deserve people. We get what we deserve.
I used to live in Texas and when I moved to Kansas City I was still quite proud of being raised in Houston. I used to fly the Texas flag on a flagpole outside our house every chance I got. I didn’t salute it or anything, cause that would be, you know…stupid or something. But yeah, I was one of those Texans who believed that you never really left Texas, you just were somewhere else temporarily until your mind was right again and you could return home.