Texas Tawk

CC: I can't imagine you haven't been working all this time. Tell me what you've been doing besides smoking pot?

DR: Keeping busy. Doing a lot for my mom. Planting new grass, yard work. She needed a lot done.

CC: Well, have you been doing anything for yourself? Any reading or something to make you happy?

DR: I watch the court shows on TV, Judge Judy and all those. I like to do that more than read.

DA: Oh.

DR: You get a lot of free information that way. Things about a misdemeanor and felonies. That's important to know. That's bettering yourself.

CC: Uh huh.

DR: Cause I don't trust cops.

CC: Oh, cops aren't so bad. A cop might save your life someday.

DA: Yeah, cops are your friends.

DR: Not Texas cops.


There are places in this world that better you. Places that expand your frame of reference, changing your very being in some unalterable way. Texas is not that place. Not for me anyway. This was not the first time I've been to Texas, and it almost certainly will not be the last. But this is definitely the time that cemented it as "not my kind of place." They say that everything's bigger in Texas and they're right. Big trucks. Big hair. Big highways. Big bellies. Big business. Driving down the interstate I was blown away by the number of "high-end" chain restaurants a person has the unfortunate opportunity of choosing from. Seeing their two-ton signs swing by me I was hit not with a pain of hunger, but with one of immediate and visceral indigestion. Fish Daddy's, Fudruckers, Waterloo, Johnny Carino's, Luby's, Outback Steakhouse, Whataburger, Macaroni Grill, Chili's, Posado's Cafe, Golden Wok, Cheddar's, McAlister's Deli, Red Robin, Village Inn, Bennigan's, IHOP, and some place shiveringly known as Grandy's. The list was literally endless. Places I had eaten at before and places I had never even heard of, recognized as corporately branded chains only by their enormous cookie cutter neon signs, each identical to the next. I'm not giving Texas a fair shot, of this I am aware. No state deserves to be judged by its highways alone. But I found it odd that with all of the heavily advertised products shining down at me from their billboards high above those traffic-jammed streets (shilling everything from Chick Fil-A sandwiches to a mentality involving a baby's head sprouting the thought bubble "God loves me! And he believes that life begins in this first three weeks of conception!") that with all of these products I happened to glance a small, rusty, wood framed sign a good quarter mile off the highway. The small billboard did not have a prominent and expensive spot along the heavily traveled strip, most likely because it didn't seem to have the corporate backed investments writing the checks. It simply said "Deepen the Art in Texas." And while it may very well have also been a cleverly worded Pro-Life campaign, it struck me as the real deal. A call to reclaim Texas (or perhaps create anew) as a center of important cultural activity and free-thought. Who knows? Texas could be amazing, in the right spots. But I'm glad to be coming home. New York tells the story of my life.