Look, in any kind of reasonable world, we'd give Texas back to Mexico, demand unbelievably strong and violent border patrols along the ex-Tex border, and be done with a whole parade of horribles (DeLay, a new Gramm, the next Bush, a newly resurgent Cowboys team, the Spurs, Clemmons, etc.). But we can't or won't, so it's best to just smile and think happy thoughts when confronted by non-Austinian Texans.
Now this is ri-goddamned-diculous. I think Lyle Lovett stated pretty clearly that everybody's welcome in Texas, so I don't know exactly how Texans qualify as whiny foreigners. We Texans really don't care about y'all's stuff—I mean, Vermont and New Hampshire arguing over maple syrup? Well, okay—I'm just saying, we have our cuisine, and it's mighty tasty. Hell, we have our own catheters.
Lyle Lovett wouldn't have to welcome everyone to Texas if Texas weren't a foreign place.
You blue-state cultural elites look down your nose at the common, god-fearing men and women, tell us you know what's best for us, all the while poring your filthy Hollyweird sexual perversions down our throat and trying to our God away from us. Stupid unducated fools, you calls us. Well, we're in power now, and we're going to make this country great again! Whose the fool?
Why are Texans like foreigners?
Because we're the only state that actually was a internationally recognized sovereign country?
The fool is ours, Don't Mess, and its name is Texas.
At least we have god-fearing women like Priscilla Owen, and not Hitlery Klintoon!
Alright, and Hawaii. And they're even more foreign than Texans, so the theory still holds.
Texans have never gotten over the statification of Alaska. [Yes, Ben, I'm making up words this morning.] Before Alaska was granted statehood, Texas was the biggest state. Now it's a weenie state, less than half the size of Alaska. They both have oil, but Alaska also has polar bears and large earthquakes, which makes it infinitely more butch than Texas. So Texas has to try to pretend that everything else originated in Texas, just to keep its little ego from completely collapsing. And, of course, they have to execute more people than all the other states combined, even those whose lawyers sleep through trials, because that shows how very Wild West and manly they all are.
[This would be more effective if our "Texan" president - y'know, the one who sports the funny accent that no other member of his family seems to have, the one who was born in New Haven, Connecticut - could actually ride a horse... ]
Tim's solution isn't workable; Mexico just isn't that stupid. They won't take Texas back unless we offer refugee status to all those folk Tim mentioned.
And remember, 'If the English language was good enough for Jesus Christ, it was good enough for the school children of Texas.' [Miriam "Ma" Ferguson, Governor circa 1920]
That, and all the men there have small wangs.
re: the texas catheter -- is this part of a larger policy opposed to sticking things into nonstandard orifices?
If so, points for consistency.
There was a cover story in the Economist a couple of years ago which made a nice effort to pin down Texas' cultural uniqueness. The argument was that Texas is the one state which has both a Southern *and* a frontier mentality. If you like it, then it's the best of both worlds – both honorable and ruggedly individualistic. If it's not your bag, then it's the worst of both worlds – one racist and crazily violent culture combining with another one. Personally, I've enjoyed my time in Texas (Austin, in particular), but am inclined to be skeptical of Texas as a concept.
Not that this applies to Texans, per se, but the other night I attended a local HS scholastic awards show. They recognized the top seniors, and then various organizations presented scholarships.
It was a night of congratulations, and smiles, and relaxation - except for the scholarship given by a 'Concern for Life' (aka Pro-Life) group. The couple that presented the pro-life sholarship had that look that is immediately recognizable - kinda bitter and mean and just aching for a fight.
Anywho, back to Texas - if you gotta brag about something over and over then maybe you are compensating for something. That's all I'm saying.
Funny isn't it? You take all the Texas bragging as compensation, we take all the Texas hating as state-envy.
I've got this selective filter in my ear. You say: "Your state is stupid!" and all I hear is "I'd sacrifice my mother for one of your savory fajitas!"
[Yes, Ben, I'm making up words this morning.]
Good on ya! I'm all in favor of nomenclating.
Odd. I had never really tried anonymous trolling before, even as a joke. (Don't Mess was me. Sorry.) When no one reacted except Ben (sorry, Ben), I really felt the urge to continue writing crazy things to see if I could get more people to react. I've never understood why trolls do what they do before. Now I think I get it, at least a little bit.
I got into this absurd argument at a bar recently over Texas. Same thing with the filter. "Tom DeLay is an evil man elected by evil voters and your state should go to hell!" sounded a lot like "No, LBJ was a product of his era!"
I only reacted because of the "whose"/"who's" error. Tell me, was that a mistake, or bait?
elites look down... nose
poring
our throat
trying to our god away
unducated
you calls us
Whose
All bait.
Not that I couldn't have made all those mistakes simply through typing too quickly.
A related pet peeve to the exchange Ogged brings up in his post. Ogged finds it annoying that Margaret Spellings doesn't know, or is pretending not to know, that this saying is used everywhere. Likewise, it irritates the everloving christ out of me when people say "Don't like the weather in Peoria/Texas/Denver/Mongolia? Well wait five minutes!"
Everyone seems to find their local weather just crazy, when usually, it's just weather. I find this, actually, especially egregious in Texas. Texas weather is not crazy. It is hot, fairly steadily, with the odd flash flood and hailstorm. But unpredictable? Not generally. Everybody shut up about your crazy weather.
If Texan were a dog breed, which would it be?
Man, susan—the weather in San Diego is just insane.
You know, growing up in South Dakota, I fried eggs on a sidewalk on a 114 degree summer day, and I delivered papers on a -45 degree winter morning (-95 with windchill!). I have also stood holding doors closed with all my strength, the only thing keeping the driving rain/flash flood rolling across a parking lot from sweeping into the restaurant.
But it was very, very rare for the weather to change radically from one hour to the next. So I hear ya, susan.
I particularly enjoy the expression "some weather" in reference to bad weather of some sort, usually a storm. As in: "your plane might be delayd; we've got some weather tonight." Although I don't like hearing that my plane may be delayed, in general.
The expression has a laconic feel that I enjoy -- not fake-laconic, or laconic as a strategy to mask stupidy.
I like the description of weather as "unsettled." It's like pathetic fallacy, making the weather seem moody.
You know what actually annoys me? When a person doesn't share the enthusiasms of some particular applicable geographic unit. It might just be my cheeseball sense of humor, but if I'm engaging in small talk with a person about whom I can infer some sort of state- or school-based rivalry, I'll almost always work it into a joke. I'll find a way to put OSU into the conversation if I meet someone from Michigan; regional BBQ sauce pride is another big well. I find it supremely annoying if the person doesn't reciprocate my prodding by having had internalized the appropriate rivalry-fueled outrage into his character.
Chopper,
You grew up in SD? I'm in MN. I knew we had something in common.
I think everybody thinks they have the wackiest weather and the best barbecue.
Tripp--
I came to MN in 1991 for school and never left. I live in St. Paul. You should hear my long Os.
I am completely unmoved by references to my rival school.
I wonder how many people have attended both sides of a rivalry?
eb - Bush has attended both Harvard and Yale, right?
ac, that attitude always irritated those of us at Rival School. But then what should we have expected from bunch of separatist thieves?
My wife is from Texas and from what I understand, they cannot stand Oklahoma. She, as well as many other Texans, feel that Texas should just go ahead and take over Oklahoma.
BTW, she's not a Bush fan by any stretch of the imagination, but when Gonzales in his Texas AG/Court days said that the Geneva conventions did not apply to Texas because Texas was not a signatory to the conventions, she goes, "Honey, it's hard to argue against that."
I'm sure there's nothing better to do in that lonely corner of the state than sitting around nursing rivalries.
Excellent points, Ono, though I have to note that Texans do not grant "Oklahoma" recognition. "Mobilehoma" in general, "fucking Bob Stoops" if we must be specific.
By the way - just curious - exactly how many stalkers do I have?
Just keeping track, for accounting purposes.
I am told that "don't mess with Texas" was originally an anti littering campaign.
And yes, we do want your lovely fajitas.
I am also reminded that Texas state procurement regs don't just include buy American provisions, they include buy Texas provisions.
That's right, Benton. I was surprised the first time I encountered a non-Texan who told me that he thought this was such an arrogant slogan, as I'd only ever thought of it as a litter campaign. (Obviously it's morphed since then into the obnoxious-ism you all know and love today.)
"I can understand the response to dislocation that inspires this kind of backward pride in immigrants, but what the hell is wrong with Texans?"
Why would it be any different when you immigrate from Texas to the U.S.?
I'm perfectly serious.
(I had my own comments on that interview here.
"Everyone seems to find their local weather just crazy, when usually, it's just weather. "
Actually, NOAA has numerous labs and HQs here precisely because of the variability of the local weather. It's a pretty rare day that doesn't have a 35-degree change of temperature.
These organizations include six of the twelve laboratories that make up NOAA's Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR) Laboratories, formerly (ERL), three of the Data Centers of the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS), one of NOAA Research's eleven Joint Institutes, the Denver Forecast Office of the National Weather Service (NWS), and an Administrative Support Center. Another NOAA Research Joint Institute is located at Colorado State University in Fort Collins but many Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere (CIRA) employees work in Boulder.This is neither made up nor because of a whim.
48: yes, quite right. (Unless that was an imperative.)
It's a pretty rare day that doesn't have a 35-degree change of temperature.
If the temperature variability is so regular and predictable, then it's not really that crazy.
(Although the "wait five minutes" suggestion might actually hold.)
Texas -- land of the world's biggest midgets.
I guess i'm lerking or stalking or trolling. I've been searching all day and stopped right here: "Texans have never gotten over the statification of Alaska....Before Alaska was granted statehood, Texas was the biggest state. Now it's a weenie state, less than half the size of Alaska. They both have oil, but Alaska also has polar bears and large earthquakes, which makes it infinitely more butch than Texas. " i'M too fog-brained to keep up with the repartay....but you're fucking hilarious. I just have to say. I'm afraid you'll want to give Minnesota back to the canadians, we have enough problems here. I'd buy texas then give it away to japan, if someone could tell me the difference between an email address and a URL? How many years have I missed?
It's possible that Spellings was really thinking of the quip, "I've been called worse by better" which I never heard until I moved to Texas five years ago. Not that the phrase was minted here or anything - I'm just saying I'd never heard it before : )
I've noticed that the condescending hostility that many Americans vent when talking about Texas sounds a lot like what many people in other countries have often (and long before GWB arrived on the scene) said about Americans: Stupid, arrogant, uncultured, etc. Shades of truth and shades of jealousy, I think.
Serious question: is there something to be jealous of Texas for?
Re: 50: But now Evil Senator Satan, er Santorum wants to take away our Ghod-given right to free weather reports...
SoCal has monotonously pleasant weather, but for those years in which the proper sacrifices haven't been made to the Weather Gods, whenupon it rains for, oh, 40 days and 40 nights. My congregation is debating whether to sacrifice Ahnold or Paris Hilton to the local theometeoron; we're leaning toward Paris and a burnt offering, if only to be able to use "That's hot!"
is there something to be jealous of Texas for?
In parts of Texas, you can watch your dog run away for three days straight.
s there something to be jealous of Texas for?
Well, if you live in Texas,it's a much shorter drive to all those sweet, no-prescription-required barbituates in Mexico. So that's something.
So far, I'm hearing a pretty resounding "no."
I'm afraid you'll want to give Minnesota back to the canadians
No, we like Minnesota, especially the Twin Cities. It has my old roomie David and Uncle Hugo's and the fries at The Malt Shop and people who say 'Uff da". And Chopper, who, alas, will never be mine... [sniff]
it's a much shorter drive to all those sweet, no-prescription-required barbituates in Mexico. So that's something.
But you can live in Southern California and enjoy similar benefits. With fajitas. And fewer executions.
Also, if you're from Texas, you can both run the world and complain constantly about not getting you due. It's a neat trick. We coastal elites don't run shit and yet still have to constantly apologize about having fancy educations and good taste. It sucks having to pretend that your lifestyle leads to spiritual emptiness just to make the people who run the country feel better about their tackiness.
Tex-Mex (inc. fajitas) is a bastardized food done better in New Mexico, Arizona, and most of CO. So, no, not fajitas.
How many Texas haters on this site have actually been to Texas? I grew up in Houston and currently live in Austin. During my travels thru the US - no one has ever guessed I'm from Texas. I find that most people naively buy into the exaggerated caricatures of how Texans are represented in the media. Seems foolish.
Yeah DE, but I have this not-quite-rational thing about the earth suddenly opening up and swallowing me, so California is pretty much out. Here in NC, the hurricanes at least give you plenty of notice before they start tearing shit up.
How many Texas haters on this site have actually been to Texas?
This question is banned!
Put it this way, Monica - a work friend of mine from Houston described it as a place no one would live unless he had to. (She was talking about the weather.) (And I've spent some time in Houston and Dallas, and a very little in a few other parts - but strictly speaking, knowledge isn't a prereq for snark around here.)
I don't hate Texas, just the TwangMullahs y'all keep sending up to run the country. And as a fellow who was represented in the US Senate for 30 years by Jesse f**king Helms, I sympathize.
Apo - but you have many more hurricanes than we have earthquakes.
I've become quite phlegmatic about the earth moving; not once has an earthquake sent trees through my roof, as did a lovely Nor'easter [the Blizzard of 1978]. Not to mention those -50 New England winters...
Oh, and I think traditionally, Austin is considered an island of "ours" in an otherwise choppy, bloody sea. We think of it like New Zion, in the Matrix movies.
I'm from the east-coast, and I've lived in Texas for 8 years.
Taken on the whole, Texas are wonderful people. They have their unique perspective and way of doing things that is both jingoistic and down-to-earth sensible, at the same time. The sense that Texas was an independent republic has never quite left their collective consciousness.
Visit an average Texan's home and you'll be met with an approximation of the sense of visiting the state. They welcome you, and will tolerate you with amused congeniality, so long as you recognize that you are a guest and respect them, as well. Once they get to know you better and trust you, they are some of the most loyal people you'll ever meet.
People generally run into problems with Texans when they demand that Texas reliquish its identity to - usually - an east or west coast viewpoint.
This is not to say there aren't exceptions to this; of course, there are. But since we were already making outrageous generalizations....
SomeCallMeTim -
Now, I couldn't agree more about not wanting to live in Houston. I call it the 'armpit of Texas'.
The weather is bad, the crime is awful (to put it mildly), and traffic bites. It's a flat cement city - nothing aesthetically pleasing about it.
Doesn't mean it's wall to wall hicks, tho.
One of the wierdest episodes of my last visit to San Antonio was coming upon an Irish bar on the riverwallk, with everyone inside singing the unicorn song. It seemed so completely not a thing that you should find in a piece of Texas that is designed to present a certain image of Texas to non Texans.
The food is good, even if better can be found elsewhere.
Spekaing of San Antone, the whole mythologizing of the Alamo is pretty amazing. But not necessarily in an admirable way.
For those of you who read French, a blog: Au Texas, tout le monde est fou sauf moi.
Spekaing of San Antone, the whole mythologizing of the Alamo is pretty amazing. But not necessarily in an admirable way.
Remember the Alamo! Just not, you know, the details.
Oh, and I think traditionally, Austin is considered an island of "ours" in an otherwise choppy, bloody sea. We think of it like New Zion, in the Matrix movies.
Some real truth to it, especially since Austin is where all the Democrats are holed up, but I think Austin is also one of the most uniquely Texas-y cities in the state, whereas (say) Dallas and Houston are intolerable precisely because they're more like every other major metropolitan area in the nation (except with sprawl in place of density). In Austin, there's lots of drinking fantastic margaritas while listening to awesome Texas music and a do-what-you-want-but-leave-me-alone attitude. It's distinctive there (and San Antonio, and the Valley), whereas Marge Spellings serves a good example of the Texas-ness of Dallas or Houston.
No, we like Minnesota, especially the Twin Cities. It has my old roomie David and Uncle Hugo's and the fries at The Malt Shop and people who say 'Uff da". And Chopper, who, alas, will never be mine... [sniff]
Let's not forget Tripp, he of the balloon rides (over the St. Croix Valley, Tripp?).
Uncle Hugo's IS the best, no? I feel guilty buying SF anyplace else, but anytime I walk in there I walk out $100 poorer and with an irate wife.
DE, we can always have each other in weird and awkward online forums.
Spellings' comment isn't really about Texas. Rather, it's Bush administration codespeak for, "I'm a total fucking incompetent -- but hey, also folksy."
anytime I walk in there I walk out $100 poorer and with an irate wife.
Uncle Hugo's is selling irate wives again? I know they wanted to diversify...
Actually, having Uncle Hugo's and Uncle Edgar's in such close proximity is an evil plot to do my budget in entirely. This is Why I Do Not Live in MplStPl. [Well, OK, that and the freakin' snow.]
we can always have each other in weird and awkward online forums.
Shoot, that leaves out Ann Coulter's site...
"Uncle Hugo's IS the best, no?"
If you see Don Blyly or Ken Fletcher, or any other old-timers around, tell them I say Jon Singer says hello. (It makes me sad you can't say this to Scott Imes any more.) I'd think pretty much any of the old Mn-stf hands would remember me.
She isn't totally incompetent. She knows reading policy as well as anyone. Now Rod Paige was a former coach he became a school administrator who became superintendent of Houston ISD (the Enron on public school districts) who became secretary of education. I'm not even sure he was a good coach.
I think that my order of preference for Texas cities I have visited does put Austin first (The Salt Lick! love good barbecue, then San Antonio. Then Laredo/Nuevo Laredo then Dallas. Houston brings up the rear.
Solid list, benton—I'd put Ft. Worth and Marfa up there, too.
Wow, that last post was really not all that punctualitious.
As for Houston, they did have the Whiteshoes Johnson and Earl Campbell. But not a great town.
Aha, GF - so you're that Gary Farber!
Tell Jon Singer that the last woman left at the Avocado Pit many, many years ago says hello.
"Tell Jon Singer that the last woman left at the Avocado Pit many, many years ago says hello."
Oh, shit, I know who you are! (And much, much, more!)
You can tell Jon yourself.
Suzle just won TAFF, by the way. (Although I had to check online to find out; I'm pretty much gafia aside from incidental blog contacts, and an occasional exchange of e-mail with one person or another, for the past few years.)
"Aha, GF - so you're that Gary Farber!"
You have broken my clever plastic disguise! I am disgusted that my subtle tactics of posting by the nom de blog of "Gary Farber," and writing about science fiction, did not fully conceal me! Drat!
(If you look at my blog, although it's not addressed particularly to fans, you can note such clues as that I posted an entry about Best Of Xero the other day, and plenty more.)
Geez, small world.
Ok, this is weird. And somewhat touching and gratifying.
Gary, DE, if you feel like dishing, this is the place.
"Gary, DE, if you feel like dishing, this is the place."
Actually, although the number of women who lived at the Avocado Pit (which I won't ID further, or otherwise say anything to particularly ID DE) is, shall I say, limited, I have to ask DE if she's either changed her name -- not the adding-husband/dropping-with-divorce thing of a few decades ago -- or uses a different one online, or am I just confused about something?
Aha, no, the picture is the women who spent a an sf con in a wheel-chair, all right. Just a different name.
I should have known. Damn fans turn up everywhere.
No, w-lfs-n, she's not otherwise plural (so far as I know, anyway); it was a typo.
Just in case anyone is interested in our little just discovered mutual soap opera, I'll at least give the context that DE and I barely had a bit of direct contact in the mid/early Seventies, but had many good mutual friends; she was kinda leaving NYC sf fandom around the time I was arriving; so we each pretty much know more of each other than actually knowing each other first-hand.
However, DE, I do still occasionally mutter bits and pieces from A Certain Musical Parody to myself.
the picture is the women who spent a an sf con in a wheel-chair
Now you've seen through my clever plastic disguise and revealed that I am a hive being from the planet Zzyxx... for which you must die, pallid Earthling!
[No, you aren't confused; I use my middle name these days.]
I read about Suzle in Ansible, which is the only contact I have with SF fandom anymore. Damn fans all over the internets...
Gary, DE, if you feel like dishing, this is the place.
I can honestly say that I have never mounted Gary on my roof to collect satellite signals in order to watch CSI all day long, despite my science-geek-crush on William Peterson.
Chopper,
Let's not forget Tripp, he of the balloon rides (over the St. Croix Valley, Tripp?).
Thank you for the kind words. I've never taken the balloon ride myself, but I hear it is great.
Actually, providing a crack in pseudo-anonymity, I live in Rochester, home to the wonderful Mayo Clinic, and in the only county in all of MN which does not have a natural lake. Bummer.
Nope, no mounting directly involved between DE and myself. Mounting of mutual friends, yes; ah, the complications of the Langdon Chart.
I actually had e-mail from Moshe last week, DE, but I'm still very pissed at him for stuff I'm not going to explain in public. (And I don't think you ever knew Anna Vargo, although she also wound up very involved, in different ways, at different times, with Jerry and Suzle, Singer, Eli Cohen, and so many others in our overlapping Crowd; she died earlier this year, which left me very broken up despite our only having been Good Friends for the past twenty years.)
I suppose we could always do this in e-mail, but that would have less tease power. (Possibly more information content, though.) But, then, no one else is reading this; they're all focused on Ogged's shirt.
Nope, bw. Don't know that person. (Although I did get a lot of hits the other day from a post on debian.org about my Star Wars script look.)
the complications of the Langdon Chart.
Good lord, is that thing still around in anything but theory? It was always surprising to see an LC drawn out and discover whom one was supposed to have slept with, but had never actually met - and which of one's discreet liaisons had been overlooked entirely.
[Langdon-related tangent: Is the Triple Nine Society still extant?]
she died earlier this year, which left me very broken up
I cried for months after Gordy Dickson died. I'd been meaning to make it to MplStPl to see him and David, amongst others; there was always this irrational feeling that there would be time. I know better now [wry grin].
And Ogged should definitely wear the blue or greenish shirt with British khaki, not the black one...
"Good lord, is that thing still around in anything but theory?"
Well, laying aside that I've noted that I've been pretty well gafia for several years, myself, and the fact that fandom pretty well fragmented to bits (several large bits included, to be sure, with worldcon-running fandom going in one direction, what's left of oldtime fanzine fandom in another, and so on, with only rather small bits of overlap via individuals here and there), over the last thirty years, I never heard that there was a One Master Chart. (If there was, it would have died when Bruce Pelz did a couple of years ago, I'd think.) But I'm sure some locals here and there had their own versions; that is, I know of some done for amusement some decades ago. It's not a concept that people wouldn't ever re-invent on their own, anyway, even if not using the name of "Kevin Langdon." Four Sigma doesn't seem to be lost to history, although this has some history that says it was pretty much from 1977-83, with a brief late 80's revival.
Yeah, it was too bad about Gordy. But that's one of the lousy things about having known so many people from our once-small world for so many decades. If you look on the left sidebar of my blog, I have a very incomplete note about some of my friends we've lost (and I don't include anyone I didn't have some personal attachment to; no one there is someone I just knew from saying "hi," to, or just from knowing of them, or having close mutual friends).
I'm assuming David is David E., who was one of the first people to welcome me on rec.arts.sf.fandom about ten years ago, when I re-made contact with a lot of people (I ended up pulling away in 2001, and by that point online fandom was about all I had been active in for some years). Haven't been in contact with him, or most folks, for about that long, with some smatterings of exceptions. Among other things I became fed up with the constant dumb arguments and name-calling in fandom, as well as with a number of individuals; I've found blogging much more congenial, amusing as that observation might be considered.
Anna was only 51; it was cancer, and we had about 3 months notice from the first sign, and she was gone. I still can't really talk about it. Anyway.
I hear Phoenix is talking about a second Worldcon bid. And there's not even a rotation system any more. But, yes, I still read Ansible, to be sure. Dave's an old pal. There's quite a lot of online fandom nowadays, actually, but I pretty much keep my distance otherwise. eFanzines.com, fanac.org, trufen.net, mailing lists, that sort of thing. I got tired of refuting phony stories about myself. But you'll find lots of familiar names at those places.
Oh, I didn't mean to imply there was One Great Chart, tho' there was one that concentrated on NYC fandom for a while.
I've been gafiating for, oh, 17 years or so. I keep in touch with some people, but they tend to be out-of-the-fan-loop, as well.
Marfa is an awesome town way out in West Texas, the gateway to the mountainous Big Bend region. It sports the Chinati Foundation, a place for minimalist art. An aerostat is nearby, and of course there are the mysterious Marfa Lights.
Marfa is cool, and so is Fort Worth, sorta -- that's my hometown, but I moved away 24 years ago when I went to college, and I'm one of many native Texans who don't live there anymore by choice. I wish my mom would move away. Texas is a hateful, willfully ignorant place.