Sunday, December 25, 2016
Near Southside
Fort Worth's Near Southside got some good press in the January edition of Texas Monthly. I was especially pleased to see a plug for the Last Word Bookstore, which I consider my "home base" in the Magnolia area. The Panther City Review, among several other publications, was launched at that fine establishment.
Texas Christmas Songs
Today I would like to spread a little holiday cheer- Texas-style, of course. Bob Wills was known to cut a Christmas track here and there, and I wanted to share his "Santa is on his Way." You have to love a Christmas ditty where Bob yells "Ahhhh haaaahhh!"
Good ol' E.T. also recorded some Christmas tunes. Here is "I'll Be Walking the Floor this Christmas."
Finally, here is Jerry Jeff Walker singing "I'll Be Home for Christmas." One of my fondest Christmas memories was seeing Jerry Jeff play in Fort Worth on Christmas night when I was home from Europe for the holidays.
Merry Christmas, y'all!
Saturday, December 24, 2016
Pretty Paper
When I was a child, my father told me about a disabled man who sold pencils outside of Leonard's Department Store in Fort Worth. It seemed like the man was always there, and he left an impression on my father. The man also left an impression on Willie Nelson, who lived in Fort Worth in those days. Willie's "Pretty Paper" was actually written about this hard-working street vendor. I first learned about the connection at the M & O Museum in Fort Worth.
Here is a link to a Fort Worth Star-Telegram story about the street vendor and the song.
Sunday, December 18, 2016
A Stroll Down East Concho Avenue
While visiting San Angelo, the town Fort Concho built, Martina and I stopped at the Cactus Book Shop on East Concho Avenue. The store specializes in Texana and the West, and its proprietor, Felton Cochran, was a close friend of Texas author Elmer Kelton, who passed away in 2009. Mr. Cochran proudly offers "the largest selection of titles by Elmer Kelton found anywhere." As a testimonial to the late author's talent, a glowing letter from Robert Duvall, who played Augustus McCrae in the Lonesome Dove television series, is nailed to a wooden beam near the Elmer Kelton section. When Duvall visited the bookstore, he apparently purchased a stack of Kelton's works, and he is clearly a fan.
My dear wife, although a fan of Texana and the West, was very indulgent. I am always drawn to people who know more than me, and Mr. Cochran is a vast repository of Texas knowledge. I asked him about the work of the illustrator Tom Lea and books by some of Texas' more well-known fiction writers, and he told me the real history of San Angelo's famed bordello. After about two hours in the bookstore, for my wife's sake I figured that it was probably time to go.
Before we left, I purchased, among other books, a copy of Elmer Kelton's The Time It Never Rained. Here is a short clip of the late author reading the prologue. Notice his fine West Texas drawl.
My dear wife, although a fan of Texana and the West, was very indulgent. I am always drawn to people who know more than me, and Mr. Cochran is a vast repository of Texas knowledge. I asked him about the work of the illustrator Tom Lea and books by some of Texas' more well-known fiction writers, and he told me the real history of San Angelo's famed bordello. After about two hours in the bookstore, for my wife's sake I figured that it was probably time to go.
Before we left, I purchased, among other books, a copy of Elmer Kelton's The Time It Never Rained. Here is a short clip of the late author reading the prologue. Notice his fine West Texas drawl.
Saturday, December 17, 2016
Out on the Blacktop
Martina and I hit the blacktop for some R & R and the chance to see a little swathe of Texas neither of us had ever visited. On our way down Highway 67 between San Angelo and Brownwood we passed many fields of cotton. Some were blanketed white and awaiting harvest. Others were now rust brown with huge white modules covered in tarps awaiting pickup. In one field we saw a green John Deere cotton picker harvesting cotton six rows at a time. Along the highway we also passed a ginning facility near a railroad siding. It was as if we were enjoying a mobile presentation of the final production stages of cotton farming.
As we drove along, we passed through the little town of Bangs, where my great-grandmother was born and raised. My great-grandmother, Viola Pace Cate, joined her family to work those cotton fields when she was just a child. In her old age, when she lived in Haltom City by way of Lonesome Dove, she told me about the backbreaking work of picking cotton. She talked about how hard it was on your hands. She talked about getting up early in the morning and picking the cotton when the dew was still upon it so that the sacks weighed heavier. Driving past those fields I imagined my ancestors toiling the rows together, men, women, and children alike.
From my childhood I remember a copy of this painting, or perhaps a similar one, hanging on my great-grandmother's wall. Memory is fallible, of course, but whatever did hang in her house conveyed a similar message.
As we drove along, we passed through the little town of Bangs, where my great-grandmother was born and raised. My great-grandmother, Viola Pace Cate, joined her family to work those cotton fields when she was just a child. In her old age, when she lived in Haltom City by way of Lonesome Dove, she told me about the backbreaking work of picking cotton. She talked about how hard it was on your hands. She talked about getting up early in the morning and picking the cotton when the dew was still upon it so that the sacks weighed heavier. Driving past those fields I imagined my ancestors toiling the rows together, men, women, and children alike.
From my childhood I remember a copy of this painting, or perhaps a similar one, hanging on my great-grandmother's wall. Memory is fallible, of course, but whatever did hang in her house conveyed a similar message.
Saturday, December 10, 2016
Which Texas?
I recently asked Martina to take some pictures that would be representative of Waylon County, the fictional setting of many of my short stories. Waylon County is in Texas, but Texas has such a wide and varied physical and cultural landscape that asking someone "to take Texas pictures" is hardly useful.
I got to thinking about it. East Texas, with its pine trees and lakes, is physically and culturally more like the Deep South than the fictional world of Waylon County. Waylon County has entirely too many oak and pecan trees to be in West Texas, and my knowledge of the Gulf Coast is so limited that I would be reluctant to set a story anywhere near Galveston or South Padre unless it was told from a neophyte tourist's point of view.
In the end, Waylon County is geographically similar to the less populated parts of Gillespie County or perhaps the area around San Saba. The characters, however, tend to talk and behave like old timers from Wise or Denton counties. My characters tend to use the colloquialisms I was raised on, and they think out loud using cowboy logic.
Here is a picture that could be set in Waylon County.
Here is a picture of Monahans Sand Dune State Park. It is not in Waylon County.
I got to thinking about it. East Texas, with its pine trees and lakes, is physically and culturally more like the Deep South than the fictional world of Waylon County. Waylon County has entirely too many oak and pecan trees to be in West Texas, and my knowledge of the Gulf Coast is so limited that I would be reluctant to set a story anywhere near Galveston or South Padre unless it was told from a neophyte tourist's point of view.
In the end, Waylon County is geographically similar to the less populated parts of Gillespie County or perhaps the area around San Saba. The characters, however, tend to talk and behave like old timers from Wise or Denton counties. My characters tend to use the colloquialisms I was raised on, and they think out loud using cowboy logic.
Here is a picture that could be set in Waylon County.
Here is a picture of Monahans Sand Dune State Park. It is not in Waylon County.
Sunday, December 4, 2016
Songwriter Sam Baker at the Gathering at Corner Theatre
Songwriter Sam Baker played at a community theater in Mesquite last Friday accompanied by drummer Mike Meadows, who just got off tour with none other than Willie himself. I had heard Meadows' name before but couldn't remember where, and a quick Google search revealed that he had played with about eight zillion musicians including Hayes Carll, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Ruthie Foster, and Gurf Morlix. No wonder I had heard his name before.
Sam Baker played songs such as "Odessa," "Isn't Love Grand," "Orphan," "Waves," and "Broken Fingers." He closed his set with a song of benediction, with "Go in Peace." And then, as an encore, he played his crowd-pleaser, "Ditch." "Ditch" was praised in Rolling Stone for its gratuitous reference to Taylor Swift, which is kind of ironic if you know the music of Sam Baker. Here is a man who references William Butler Yeats in his work, a man who writes about the power of kindness and love, a man who writes with almost unfathomable vulnerability, yet he gains notoriety for his reference to a pop music sweetheart. C'est la vie.
Baker also played three songs from his upcoming album to be released in May. One song, "A Flashlight and a Forty-five," I had heard him play before. The song is about the men called "tunnel rats" who were sent looking for the enemy in the tunnels of Vietnam with a flashlight and a weapon. After the show, my father went and talked to Sam about the song, for he had known some "tunnel rats" in his day. In my mind, Sam Baker is one of the finest songwriters playing today, and I am looking forward to his new album. His first four albums are in heavy rotation around my house, and I anticipate that his fifth album will quickly join that rotation.
Here is a link to Sam Baker on youtube.
https://www.youtube.com/user/SamBakerVideo
Sam Baker played songs such as "Odessa," "Isn't Love Grand," "Orphan," "Waves," and "Broken Fingers." He closed his set with a song of benediction, with "Go in Peace." And then, as an encore, he played his crowd-pleaser, "Ditch." "Ditch" was praised in Rolling Stone for its gratuitous reference to Taylor Swift, which is kind of ironic if you know the music of Sam Baker. Here is a man who references William Butler Yeats in his work, a man who writes about the power of kindness and love, a man who writes with almost unfathomable vulnerability, yet he gains notoriety for his reference to a pop music sweetheart. C'est la vie.
Baker also played three songs from his upcoming album to be released in May. One song, "A Flashlight and a Forty-five," I had heard him play before. The song is about the men called "tunnel rats" who were sent looking for the enemy in the tunnels of Vietnam with a flashlight and a weapon. After the show, my father went and talked to Sam about the song, for he had known some "tunnel rats" in his day. In my mind, Sam Baker is one of the finest songwriters playing today, and I am looking forward to his new album. His first four albums are in heavy rotation around my house, and I anticipate that his fifth album will quickly join that rotation.
Here is a link to Sam Baker on youtube.
https://www.youtube.com/user/SamBakerVideo
Saturday, December 3, 2016
The Politics of Barbeque
Congressman Louie Gohmert from Tyler, who allegedly cooks the finest ribs inside the Beltway, is up in arms because he has been banned from barbequeing on his balcony at the US Capitol. While I avoid the topic of politics on this Texas arts and culture blog, I was drawn to this story like an armadillo to the highway.
While I can certainly understand the representative wanting to retain the right to sovereignty in his culinary affairs, and could even understand why he might wave a "Barbeque Free of Die" flag from his balcony in not-so-quiet protest, I also believe that there is more to the story than what is being reported. The Architect of the Capitol cited a "safety concern," but I think the real issue is the offices downwind.
If Representative Gohmert smokes his ribs, every balcony downwind would be enveloped in a relentless cloud of smoke redolent of burning mesquite and cooked porcine flesh. Even for those of us who are great admirers of the barbeque arts, it would not exactly be desirable for our offices to be consumed in smoke and our suits smelling like a roadside meat shack.
On a macrocosmic scale, the case is the equivalent of corporations being allowed to pollute our air and water in the name of laissez faire economics, regardless of what happens to the people around them. Luckily, I am not the one who must resolve this issue. I will defer to the wisdom of the US House of Representatives and their Speaker of the House to resolve this "governmental-oversight" dispute.
Here is a link to a Houston Chronicle article on the Congressman's beef. The headline is priceless.
http://www.chron.com/news/politics/article/Congressman-Louie-Gohmert-stands-up-for-barbeque-10688259.php
While I can certainly understand the representative wanting to retain the right to sovereignty in his culinary affairs, and could even understand why he might wave a "Barbeque Free of Die" flag from his balcony in not-so-quiet protest, I also believe that there is more to the story than what is being reported. The Architect of the Capitol cited a "safety concern," but I think the real issue is the offices downwind.
If Representative Gohmert smokes his ribs, every balcony downwind would be enveloped in a relentless cloud of smoke redolent of burning mesquite and cooked porcine flesh. Even for those of us who are great admirers of the barbeque arts, it would not exactly be desirable for our offices to be consumed in smoke and our suits smelling like a roadside meat shack.
On a macrocosmic scale, the case is the equivalent of corporations being allowed to pollute our air and water in the name of laissez faire economics, regardless of what happens to the people around them. Luckily, I am not the one who must resolve this issue. I will defer to the wisdom of the US House of Representatives and their Speaker of the House to resolve this "governmental-oversight" dispute.
Here is a link to a Houston Chronicle article on the Congressman's beef. The headline is priceless.
http://www.chron.com/news/politics/article/Congressman-Louie-Gohmert-stands-up-for-barbeque-10688259.php
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