HOW TO DEVELOP A HEALTHY HATRED
FOR THE GREAT STATE OF TEXAS.

G That's the cover of my first book! A collection of stories, recipes & a novella from this site plus six stories never before published. Preview it & buy it! 170 pgs, 6x9" paperback.

.....A golf course, a cactus patch, a longhorn pasture, a Nissan dealership. There is a rift open between the dimensions of your Earth and the Hell of Revelations, and its name is TEXAS.


HOWDY.
.....In this treatise, I will show a dozen overwhelming reasons not to visit, pass through, pass near, or God forbid, LIVE in Texas. Most reasonable people would know better instantly upon realizing that the son of George Bush governs Texas. But for the benefit of the slow- witted, I will show why Texas' proud tradition of imperialism, its superficial hospitality, its fucked-up highways, its maniac drivers, its pistol packin citizenry, its internationally acclaimed prison system and its eternally tormenting HEAT will be enough to keep you away, even without bringing up how funny they talk. (No, I'll bring that up too.)
.....I want you to know that this is not some angsty rant by an adolescent who would bitch about his city, state or country no matter where he lived. This is honest-to-goodness righteous nausea from an adult trapped in Texas by love and a 12-month lease. .....Some of my complaints should probably be directed more at Houston, where I lived for a year, than at the whole state. And I know there are pockets of tranquility and/or progressiveness in Austin and maybe some hidden areas of Texas. But I figure this state should be held to higher standards for cultivating a reputation as a big, friendly, beautiful place to be.

* NEW & IMPROVED! *
Now you can see FUCK TEXAS in its original format: a grainy, photocopied pamphlet! Each page has been lovingly rendered (okay, lovingly scanned) so readers can now experience horrible collages of maps and cacti and Texas ambience!

Son of Mighty Geo. Bush

.....The people of the Great State of Texas elected George Bush Jr. as their governor. Nuff said. I should probably research some of the stupid things he's done, but why bother? It can't get any more ridiculous than the fact that he's George Bush's son.


Lone Star Imperialist Pride

.....The biggest tourist attraction in the state is the Alamo, a monument to the unashamed stealing of "Tejas" from Mexico. And these Anglos have the gall to bitch about their cities "filling up" with Mexicans.
.....If you have to go to the Alamo, check out the wax museum next door. It's boss.


Prisons to Rival The Best Turkey Or Uganda Has To Offer

.....If they haven't lethally injected anybody since last Thursday, it's been a slow week. In fact, prisons are such a booming industry in TX, they import convicts from other states! It's just an all-around swell (swollen?) correctional system that even makes Amnesty International stand up and take notice.
.....So when you're looking for scorpions, poisonous snakes, scorching heat and human rights abuses, don't go all the way to Mexico! You can get all that and more in Texas! "It's Like A Whole Other Country That Was Founded By Your Abusive Brother-In-Law Next Door."




Texas Friendly

.....Hospitality. Good-will as wide-spread as the endless plains of Texas, as mind-numbingly large as the sky that stretches from that green horizon far in the East way overhead and down 100 miles to the West like the Big Ol' Sky just can't stop stretching out, trying with all its might to escape this achingly flat-
.....Well, never mind. Are Texans hospitable to Outsiders? Hell yes. This is wonderfully exemplified by the state's ad campaign alluded to earlier, "It's Like A Whole Other Country," in which average citizens of all ages and skin tones describe the many sites they'll personally come to Texas. "I'd take you hiking, fishing and mountain biking," says Roderick Blake, "one of 18 million Texas ambassadors" in a print ad.
.....Sure, they're hospitable -- you're a fuckin tourist! You're about to dump out-of-state money into their economy and decrease their local taxes by all the slaes taxes you'll pay! Now ask one of your 18 million Texas ambassadors for a job. When you're sitting in a post office deep inside the complex of Charles Matheson Scientific, interviewing for an entry level technical writing position in your $2 suitcoat from Value Village and your soft-spoken potential boss asks, "Do you have any experience with Pagemaker or Quark Express?", you just rely on that old Texas hospitality, slap yore knee and guffaw, "Shucks no! But I do gotta cum laude Bachelor's in Written Communications from Eastern Michigan University and I can WRITE THE HIND LEG OFF A HORSE any day of the week!" Your boss man will surely shriek, "You're hired!" (although it'll sound to your untrained ear like "Y'alla hard!"), and you can toss your sombrero in the air with a mighty "YEEEEhaw!" secure in the knowledge that you'll be able to pay your rent and your car insurance and eat McDonald's 7 days a week, and you'll never inventory a Gap until 4:30 in the morning and you'll never publish a zine called "Fuck Texas!" (...nor put it online.)
.....Or something like that.


Daddy/sir, may I please breathe, sir!

.....Texan youth are indoctrinated from an early age to say, "please" and "Thank you" and "no, sir" and "Ma'am yes ma'am" and other Marines-style displays of subservience. These "polite" little Texas ambassadors will then describe for you any and all pimples, moles, blemishes, freckles or warts on your face or hands or arms, and how much money has been spent on them this week by mother or father or uncle or grandparents, and how they spent the previous afternoon in the pool at their father's apartment complex and "Does y'all's apartments have a pool?-" waving hand and looking away like a righteous guest of Ricki Lake without pausing to hear your answer "-I didn't think so."
.....And THAT is "Texas Friendly" for you.


GUN SLINGERS - It's Not Just A Stereotype Anymore.

.....You don't see a lot of Pecos Bill types with dusty chaps or sagebrush mustaches. And the few cowboy hats you see are worn by paunchy potential line-dancers who are just as likely to be GOLFING.
.....You realize that the scariest stereotype of the Cowboy Texan is true when you walk up to a bank, hospital, Dept of Public Safety or restaurant and see a sign that reads "Handguns not allowed on these premises, as outlined by state law 115-B-7, article 3n yada yada..." Shouldn't this go without saying?
.....No, because a few years back the Texas legislature passed a concealed weapons law that allows any idiot except a felon to carry a concealed handgun if they can sit through a concealed weapons course. Doesn't this scare you a little bit?
.....Hell, I used to be a gung-ho Gun Rights boy, cuz that's how my Daddy raised me. "You'll take my rifle when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers" and all that. If I had been voting age for the '88 presidential election, I would have voted for Bush because my Pa kept telling me about the dangerous Gun Control plans of Dukakis. Eeek!
.....But if the idea of universal concealed weapons doesn't frighten you, then you need to start thinking of the people you know carrying handguns. Picture your brother with a 9mm Barretta strapped under his armpit. Would you trust your sister with a .45 in her purse? You must have at least one cousin who used to give you noogies and pink- bellies and used to playfully push you out of his treehouse, don't you? (Not you, Russel! I mean my other cousins Ken or Jason or *shiver* AUDREY.) He's the kind of guy with a .357 mag stuck down the back of his pants.
.....Now let's say you're a loyal NRA dude with a perfectly responsible family (or no next of kin). If you're not scared yet, go to your friendly neighborhood U-RENCH-UM Self-Serve Used Auto Parts Dealer. What kind of piece would Steve behind the counter have tucked into the small of his back, the barrel getting sweaty where it rubbed his ass- crack? Or his assistants Pierre and Herbert and Rollo? (Aren't you jealous of the little dotted line and "INSERT SCALPEL HERE" tattoo on the back of Herbert's neck?)
.....Finally, take a look around the second-cleanest bar in your neighborhood. That tubby guy that always sits by the front door could easily hide a Dirty Harry under his bicep. Can you honestly go into your local bar, look at everyone therE and tell me the streets are safer with all of them packin heat?
.....So far, I've only been trying to point out your loved ones and a few strangers who you wouldn't trust with hidden handguns in public. We don't need to get into worst case scenario of psychos and crooks carrying pistols, because you know they'll carry with or without the law. I just want you to think of a few assholes from work or people you went to school with who you can imagine blowing somebody's head off for telling one too many Polack jokes or commenting on how nice his woman looks.
.....Does this picture of a gun-slinging populace scare you? Welcome to Texas.


EARTHQUAKE DAMAGE?
Naw, that's how the roads always look.

.....If you think your town has ridiculous pot-holes, come to Houston. I would have thought Michigan roads would be more gnarly with all the plows scraping ice and snow away and making small pot-holes bigger. So what's Houston's excuse for having cracks and gaps that make it look like a post-apocalyptic nightmare? Some of the deep fissures in the highway would honestly make you think an earthquake just hit the city.
.....My theory is that enough people here drive Broncos and Wranglers and Ram trucks, they don't notice holes smaller than their tires.
........Or it could be they don't see the pot-holes under all the water. Ya see, Houston seems to flood about once a month or so. Residents bitch about how it rains too much or rains too often (and then they grumble jealously about Seattle's rain-fame). But it's not so much the amount that comes down, it's the amount that won't drain away. With 50 feet above sea level and 50 miles to the sea, it's easy to figure out that the slopes around H-town are about one foot every mile. The water can't drain away fast enough, so you get little lakes of standing water across backroads, most of the city streets, and even some of the interstates.
.....Now don't assume I've been doing reasearch on any of this, but I noticed an article about the Super Bowl by Hunter S. Thompson from 1974 (anthologized in _The Great Shark Hunt_ or something like that) in which he complains about "big lakes of standing water on the road" in his visit to Houston. It's amazing what a few million people can't accomplish in 23 years.
.....But WAIT. I'm only complaining about the worn and accidentally fucked up roads. I haven't even mentioned the planned fuck-ups of gargantuan curbs. Most every residential driveway or entrance or exit from a parking lot to a city street has an abrupt dip down to the street, designed to gradually scrape the balls off your car. If you drive into and out of any 10 strip-mall parking lots in any part of the city, you're guaranteed to hear your muffler grind on at least two driveways.


And Furthermore...

.....Throughout Texas, there are signs on the major freeways that say, "Guard rail damage ahead," with a few orange pylons next to the mangled guard rail sections. Like you're going to say, "Oops, I better wait a few more miles to run into the guard rail in my sleep." Better yet are the signs in front of roadway construction that say "OBVSERVE ALL WARNING SIGNS--STATE LAW." I imagine these signs were devised after some dumb-ass caused a wreck and told the judge, "I can't be held responsible because I didn't notice the bright orange warning signs." But what if you don't notice the OBSERVE ALL WARNING SIGNS sign? Shouldn't they have a sign before that one to prepare you for it? Or how about one sign that says OBSERVE ALL WARNING SIGNS -- INCLUDING THIS ONE. Or later signs that say, "GO BACK AND READ THAT LAST SIGN!"


DRIVE TEXAS FRIENDLY

....."Texas Friendly" my ass. These fuckers are the worst tailgators and the most idiotic drivers anywhere. Red lights seem to be suggestions. When Texans need to pull onto a road with a lot of traffic, they don't look both ways and wait until it's clear. They pull out halfway and wait for the traffic to screech to a stop all around them.
.....When I first came to Texas, I thought it was the bad section of town I lived in that explained so many dented and slightly crunched cars all around. They can't afford the repairs, I thought. But now I realize it's pretty much city-wide because you can't avoid getting hit. If you don't drive like an asshole yourself, you'll be driving alongside a few thousand of them every day. (My car was ripped like the Titanic where a senior citizen lady plowed into my PARKED vehicle.)


Clusterfucked Interstates

.....The major interstate highways throughout TX have a system of feeder roads, mostly one way. This means to get on the limited access freeways, you need to get on the little feeder freeways that run along side them. In some cases (I-10 west of Houston) I've seen where they have the major freeway, then a heavily used feeder road next to it, and finally a two-way road parallel to that, all within 100 feet of each other.
.....So why is that so bad? For one thing, you have to escape from the highway onto the feeder, where you're still stuck and have to get off that to where you wanna go. If you miss the poorly labeled sign for your exit, you'll probably have to drive five miles down and five miles back to hit it again.
.....The feeder systems are also inconsistent. Sometimes if you try to follow the feeder (instead of the way-limited-access highway itself) to find your crossroad more easily, the feeder will dead-end in the middle of nowhere or turn into an irrelevant road and fly off sideways to Timbukthree.
.....Worse is when the feeders are two-way, which means you have to zip across a lane of oncoming traffic to get on the freeway, or stop in your lane til the oncoming traffic is clear and then blast-off to 70 mph on a 30-foot entrance ramp.


YANKEE GO HOME!

.....I'm totally unjustified to biTch about this, because dialect is meaningless and there's no single "proper" dialect of English. I'm sorry, but I gotta let this out:
.....Have you ever worked for someone who wears a shirt and tie and expensive shoes and makes more money each week than you see in five, who says "SEEment?" And when he didn't quite hear what you said, he'll reply, "Do whut?"
.....I know deep in my cerebellum that a Southern accent does not mean a person is good or bad or smart or dumb, but when anyone says, "SEEment," I think they're telling me about the SEEment POND good ol' Mr. Drysdale INstalled for them. Then they'll show me the REceipt.
.....What's worse is the mysterious dropped-H sound of Texans, but only in a few cases. I would have thought this was an aspect of New England or Lon Gyland accents, not Youman Behavya. But for some reason, everyone around Houston, even the standard-sounding, accent- free TV newscasters say "umble" when talking about the town of Humble. (Probably when I pronounce the "H" it sounds as stupid to them as saying Dess Moyness, Iowa, or like when Melinda asked if I knew where Solt Saint Marie was in Michigan.)
.....The mystery is easily solved though, when you consider the meaning of the word in context. "Humble." A town named "Humble." A town in TEXAS named "Humble." Thousands of Texans who live in a town named "Humble." People drop the first letter because they don't want to laugh every time they say, "Humble, Texas." I imagine the same speech anomaly would develop in other places if there were towns like Normal, California, or Hospitable, New York, or Transvestite City, Missouri, or Progessive, Florida, or Hyundai, Michigan. (Actually, I'm surprised anyone can pronounce "The Detroit Symphony Orchestra." But that's sad, not funny.) [Also note that many pronounce the name of their hometown "Youston." Go figya.]

ice-house: a bar with garage doors on the front so the
.....place can be wide open and catch breezes better.

boot: not the trunk of the car, you stupid Brit!  Here 
.....it means the slice of bread at either end of a loaf.

soda: the only acceptable word for "pop."
 
plaza:  1. common term for a strip mall (e.g. Tatar Blvd 
.....Plaza, Braeswood Hollow Plaza, etc.)  2. common term
.....for a titty-bar (e.g. Fantasy Plaza, Membories Plaza,
.....Gentlemen's Plaza, etc.)

24 hour news stand: 24 hour porn shop that also carries
.....Time, Newsweek and maybe USA Today.

   Long horns, palm trees, corn dogs, distant horizons, taquerias,
billboards peeling from the humidity that read "Who's the father? 
1-800-DNA-TYPE" and "Toma Pepsi! Gana Pepsi stuff!", fast food chain 
"WHATABURGER!" that lets you pay by credit card at the drive-thru, 
bleeding Heart of Jesus candles at every Wal-Mart or Target you find, 
plus the sparkling enterprise right down the street from our apartment 
called A+A NICHELSON INCOME TAX/WASHATERIA.
   Fuckin URBAN COWBOY was filmed in Pasadena, TX.


IS THAT ALL?


   Seems like I'm forgetting something...

   Oh yes.  THE HEAT.  The mind-numbing, blood-boiling, sweat in your 
eyes while you smell your flesh cooking, make you wanna lay down and 
DIE, heat.
   That can get on your nerves sometimes.





EXCEPTIONS

1.  Waffle House.  You can't give Texas much credit, since these old 
IHOP-wannabe's are all over the South.  But you can credit Texas for 
having so damn many of them.  The joy of the Waffle House, in case 
y'ain't never been, is the ATMOSPHERE.  The corporate logo sign is 
big boxy black letters on a yellow background similar to those cheap 
portable signs on wheels with the changeable letters and the row of 
lights all around the border.  Inside, every Waffle House has the same 
layout, a shotgun shack converted to a diner.  Booths up front and a 
counter with implanted barstools facing the rill.  Any time of night 
you go in, there's always one good talkative yokel sitting at the 
counter, gently flirting with the waitresses.  The waitresses wear 
traditional '60s style uniforms, and they yell out these dopey codes 
for hash browns to the short-order cook:  "Need one smothered, 
scattered, topped, chopped, diced and covered."  (Translation: hash 
browns smothered with onions, diced tomatoes, green peppers, covered 
with chili and topped with cheese.)
   Best part is that whether you hit a Waffle House in TX or Kentucky 
or if you can find one in Ohio, you can rest assured the waitresses 
are shipped fresh daily from Georgia.  Either that or they're coached 
on the perfect Suthuhn accent of a Georgia peach.
   I just can't recommend them enough.  Good artery-cloggin food, 
strange characters, down-homey atmosphere, and always open 24 hours.  
You'll even forget to laugh when they say, "Y'all come back now, ya 
hear?"

2.  Dominique Sachse.  Houston news anchor.  Yowza.

3.  The Abundance of Mexican Religious Icons.  Gotta love 'em.

4.  The Intoxicating Effect of Constant Overwhelming Heat.  After 
you're stuck in it a while and you know you can't escape it for the 
moment, it's kinda neat to feel your body all atingle, your mind 
drifting lazily because it's too hot to concentrate.  You become 
uninhibited in your conversations, because it's too god damn hot to 
care.  This effect explains a lot about the general attitudes of 
Texans.

LAST.  Melinda Ann Sxxxx.  My mean squeeze.  When she's good, she's 
real good.  When she's bad, she's unbearable.  I really can't
recommend my girlfriend enough.  If you ever get a chance to have her 
as a girlfriend (AND I HOPE YOU DON'T, although you may have at some 
point before me, tee-hee), you should.  She's cute and cuddly and soft 
and warm and smoky and she says the cutest things when she's stoned.  
If she doesn't kill you, she'll make you stronger.  [Since this was
written, we got married (10-31-97), so adjust the above lines as you
think necessary.]


IN CONCLUSION

   I'm lobbying the Boss (Melinda my little honey curmudgeon) to 
settle in a rural area outside of Houston at least, maybe the other 
side of Pearland or north (a few degrees cooler?!) around New Caney 
where there's a few trees and a half mile of woods between some of the 
houses.
   There's a slim chance that I'll get her to like Michigan better.  
Since I was stuck there in TX for a year, she agreed that it would be 
fair if we spend a year in my homeland, the Winter Wonderland.
   I had hoped she would present a rebuttal called FUCK MICHIGAN, but 
I kinda want to stay here and keep her here, so I'm not going to press 
her to analyze what she hates about this place.  She could write 
sections complaining about Detroit and the car companies and the 
bitter cold and the Republican Governor John Engler, who pioneers new 
ways to give money and privilege to the rich while pissing on the 
proles.
   Then we'll settle down in NYC, where we'll both have something to 
write about.

G That's the cover of my first book! A collection of stories, recipes & a novella from this site plus six stories never before published. Preview it & buy it! 170 pgs, 6x9" paperback.

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