The UnTexan

WHY PORTLAND IS PORTLAND AND AUSTIN ISN'T

Austin will never be Portland no matter how many tattooed geeks, techies and Asian engineers move here. Portland is a smart place to live. It has trains and brains and bike lanes. Austin's not smart enough to overcome its greedy, strip-developing, lethal-injecting, pickup-driving, traffic-jamming Texas heart and none of the Austin cheerleaders and Austin boosters can shovel enough shit to cover that up. It is what it is and it ain't what it ain't.

Which is what makes this little tale so heartwarming:

My neighborhood's community email has been hopping. Folks have been in a tizzy the past few days over a low-flying cop helicopter. Of course, it doesn't take anything more than a couple of black guys fishing in the local pond to get people tizzy-fied and emailing about the imagined horrors of urban crime and dark invaders with evil intentions (someone who saw the guys fishing said she suspected they were selling drugs because one of them kept talking on his cell phone and she called the police even though she had no idea what the guy was talking about; a black neighbor sent out an email saying it seemed like the neighborhood hasn't changed much in the 20-plus years he has been here and that "fishing while black" -- in fact, doing anything while black -- still seemed to be enough of a crime for neighbors to bring the cops down on a man's ass. But many a proud Austinite's lily white breast hides a dark and racist heart; it comes with the territory, just like the pickup driving and lethal injecting and that last little bit of the Old South that J. Frank Dobie couldn't bury with cowboy talk). So, for a couple of days, the angsty emails have been flying and dark and violent urban fantasies growing around that cop chopper that was flying so low.

Well, here's what happened (directly from the email traffic): "OK! So, There were two individuals stealing livestock... one was detained. Then the other was found and both transported to jail. They were stealing goats and the goats were already loaded in the truck. So the police were just in time! And they got the bad guys!! I hope the bad guys have to pay for the hours worth of helicoptor fuel, etc."

And this was almost in the shadow of the highest tech Samsung factory at the edge of town.

Now if I happened to be the police reporter at the local newspaper, I would make a special effort to write about those goat rustlers just to give Austinites a little perspective about the past they cannot escape no matter how much they twitter and tweet. But the newspaper won't do that. The American-Statesman is not in the perspective business, it is in the cheerleader business. The Austin Chronicle is just about as bad, with overlong stories in little-bitty type. And if you give folks a real glimpse of themselves, the whole damned thing might fall apart. Austin is dreaming hipster dreams. It can't afford nightmares about goat rustlers.

LOSING MY RELIGION?

I have a virus. It's not swine flu, but it is something that saps my energy and makes my head and knees hurt. Yesterday I woke up already wanting to go back to bed. I went to the office instead. I did not have to go to my office, didn't particularly want to go, but I needed to go. I needed the comfort of the walls, windows, desk and door because viruses are viruses, but something else has hold of my soul lately and won't let go. Or perhaps it is something that is losing its grip on my soul and is clawing desperately trying not to slip away. Language has always saved me, set me free or at least set things straight for me, but words are harder to come by lately and they sometimes fail me completely. And when the words fail, the sentences break and whole structures creak and then collapse. On the days when I need a box to put the broken pieces of my salvation in, I go downtown to my office, because when words fail me, I need the walls, windows, desk and door. I need a job. I need an architecture I understand.

OBAMA AND THE HEART OF DARKNESS IN THE HEART OF THE HEART OF THE COUNTRY

I just spent a few days on a ranch near Del Norte in southern Colorado. It is a beautiful place. There was snow on the mountains and there were fish in the river and the locals don't seem to like Barack Obama very much. But there is a real affinity for Sarah Palin. You get the idea that these are the people - just plain old middlin', hardworking white folks with guns - for whom Obama will never be the president (therefore they have every right to denigrate both the man and the office; in fact, they seem for all the world like folks who would deniggerate the presidency if they got the chance, just like lots of those people who show up at Fox/Bill O'Reilly/Glenn Beck-induced rallies and tea parties, people who prefer their African Americans in the woodpile not the White House and always will). But for them Palin always will be the chance America missed. I found this sign in the middle of town. The drawing is better than the spelling.

Meanwhile, read In the Heart of the Heart of the Country by William H. Gass and Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad and keep reading the good stuff. Understanding the boogeyman helps keep him at bay.

DEATH AND TEXAS AND GOV. PERRY

There is a good chance that Texas has executed an innocent man. What else would you expect from the state that elected Rick Perry to be its governor? Todd Willingham was executed in 2004 for setting the fire that killed his three children. Now it appears that there are huge questions about whether the blaze was arson or not. Ooooops! But Gov. Perry isn't letting that bother him one little bit. When asked about the case, Perry said he thinks Willingham was guilty even if the arson evidence doesn't stand up to scrutiny. The question (appropriately raised by Michael Landauer of the Dallas Morning News): "How does the governor think Willingham killed his kids if not by arson?" If the arson wasn't arson what was Willingham guilty of? Even for Gov. Perry, not known for his intellectual prowess, this seems pretty damned dumb. The sad thing about the whole case is that no matter what, Perry goes on being governor and Willingham goes on being dead.

And Texas goes on killing people who kill people (or not). Christopher Coleman is due to die today while the rest of Texas settles in for a good dinner and an evening in front of the TV. Kenneth Mosely is scheduled to die Sept. 24. And John Ballentine on Sept 30. Six more are scheduled for execution by mid-November.

There was an op-ed piece from the New York Times in the local newspaper this morning. It quotes President John Kennedy telling his wife as they prepared to fly to Texas on the last day of his life, "We're heading into nut country today." Texas will kill you if it gets half a chance. JFK knew it. Todd Willingham knew it. I know it. And two of the three of us are already dead. I think about that sometimes.

After seven years I remain the UnTexan. Texas kills.

MARY TRAVERS: I WAS ONLY PASSING THROUGH

I am sitting here listening to music I told myself I outgrew a long time ago. I first came across Peter, Paul and Mary when I was on my way to Bob Dylan but didn't know where I was going. They made a wonderful noise together. What was more important was that they made a meaningful noise together, fitting their voices together around the words in an old harmony I could understand. And that is what I was after - meaningful noise. It was 1962-63 and the times were changing sure enough and I was 17 years old and in need of something to believe in. I could feel it and when I listened to Peter, Paul and Mary - especially Mary - I heard it too. Mary Travers. There was nothing like her at my high school; the girls there were too tidy to be sexy with their Peter Pan collars, virgin pins and Capezio flats. They were thin-lipped southern women in the making. I could already see it in their faces. But Mary Travers was from New York City. Mary Travers had that long blond hair, those bangs, that voice. She made folk music sexy, especially for those of us who were not quite sure what we were listening to or why, and were nowhere near ready to hear Bob Dylan sing his own songs. She was a sexy woman making a meaningful noise. She seemed like everything I wanted in a woman, the kind of woman who would want a man like me. When I met her (backstage after a show though a cousin of a friend of a friend whose other cousin played bass for Peter, Paul and Mary if I remember it correctly) she was - frighteningly - a woman. And I was only a babbling boy in front of her. Not long after that I "outgrew" Peter, Paul and Mary, found Bob Dylan and abandoned prim and thin-lipped girls with Peter Pan collars and virgin pins. Mary Travers died Sept. 16. She helped me get past harmony and get on with my life.

JIMMY CARTER GETS IT RIGHT

Former President Jimmy Carter said that when South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson yelled "You lie!" at President Barack Obama, the comment was "based in racism." I agree. And it's about time somebody was willing to say it loud and proud. Carter also said, "There is an inherent feeling among many in this country that an African-American should not be president." Right again. The people who didn't want their children to hear Obama's speech at school for fear of his "socialistic agenda" (as one Texas mama put it on national TV) are cut from the same stars-and-bars cloth as the ones who have tried so hard to link the words "nigger" and "nazi" (and they know "nigger-nazi" has a certain ugly appeal to it) over the past few weeks. Carter says correctly that this is not about health care or socialism or anything else, but is rooted in something far deeper, plain old dumbass racism, and comes straight from America's white trash heart. Carter is saying what needs to be said.

As for telling it like it is: Kanye West IS a jackass.

ALICIA PARLETTE INFO

For those who come here seeking Alicia Parlette, and there are many of you, here is a little something that came in over the virtual transom: Alicia news. It is almost as good as hearing from Alicia herself.

THE TEXANTHROPE

I always wondered why Davy Crockett liked Texas so much. It turns out he left Tennessee on Oct. 31, 1835, swore his allegiance to Texas in January 1836 and died a couple of months later, March 6, 1836.  It turns out he wasn't here long enough to matter. He wasn't in Texas six months before he died (some people might consider that a lucky break) but I'll bet he had plenty of time looking over the Alamo wall at all those Mexicans and first wondering where the hell they all came from (subsequent generations of Texans have had a similar response) and then wondering why he came. Maybe it was the last thing that passed through his mind as the Mexicans were killing him in a language he couldn't understand: "Why in the hell am I here?" The answer: It seemed like a good idea at the time. That happens to lots of people. It happened to us.

After all this time in Austin, my wife and I are just about to arrive in Texas or just about to begin leaving. I would like to think it is a toss-up, but probably not.

I have been battling Texas since our arrival -- for more than seven years. Now it appears Texas is winning. Or perhaps it has won already. Or the toss has been lost. At any rate, I feel tired, defeated and destined to spend the foreseeable future here. My wife and I came to Texas for the best of reasons (my wife's Texas-paid-for ph.d.) and the UnTexan was born out a mostly lighthearted, jesting disregard for a place he knew he would be leaving in a few years (four years at the most). Now we are three years past that and we have stayed for the worst of reasons (job, money, stuff, inertia, exhaustion, depression, fear, failure of imagination, more stuff, more money, more inertia or more fear or more exhaustion or less imagination, whatever) and over those "extra" years the UnTexan's lighthearted jesting has been drained of its lightheartedness. In fact, the UnTexan is well on the way to becoming the Texanthrope. We have stayed too long. We might not be leaving. She wants to stay longer. I am ill-prepared. Things have turned serious.

How does a man begin to survive such a place? Davy Crockett's no help; if he taught us anything it is that Texas will kill you.

First, I must remind myself that I am with my wife, not in Texas. Wife. Texas. Two distinctly different things. Looking at things this way has seen me through so far. And henceforth, I also will count on two documents to see me through to the end: 1) A Passport, which at least offers the illusion that I can leave though it seems more and more likely I never will; and 2) My Last Will and Testament, which will insist that my remains never be buried, spread, entombed or otherwise disposed of on or in Texas soil (unless they are with those of my wife because then I would remain with her, not in Texas). Remember that part of Lonesome Dove where Gus made his old friend Call haul his corpse all the way back to Texas in a buckboard? Now start after they arrived in Texas and run the film backwards and you will see what has to happen with me. I will insist on it. I'm sure it's something Gus would understand. One man's Texas is another man's unTexas. And it will be in writing. Gus understood that too.

My wife, my passport and my will. It's so simple. It's so complicated. It is the best I can do, at least for now. Texas is big; Texas looms large for us. And here we are like weary children on a long journey in a hot car who ask repeatedly and monotonously from the confines of the car's backseat, "Are we there yet? Are we there yet," and receive no answer. Still we can't stop asking. "When will we get there?"

"Have we left yet?"

Will it be soon?

FOODIE FOLLIES

There is organic food, locally grown food, organically grown food, locally grown organic food, grown-in my-own-backyard food, farmers market food, and Whole Foods food. People want chickens without cages and beef without chemicals. They want lambs that have eaten only the sweetest grass and pigs that were allowed to enjoy life in the sunshine before they became ham. Boutique hand-tended organic beers abound. Water is bottled or filtered and guaranteed to be pure. Bread is whole grain. There are restaurants devoted to using only locally grown, organic ingredients. People are hungry for something, but what is it? Adults seek unadulterated lives. They are earnest, gluttonous, insatiable. But do they want to be healthy or do they want to be pure? If it is health they want, it is already too late; they have long-since ingested, imbibed, inhaled or inherited their eventual destruction. If it is purity they are after, they might have better luck eating a Christian, perhaps an organic, purity ring- wearing, locally grown, free-range Christian from the farmers market. But my guess is they will still be hungry, even if they eat everything but the ring.

IT'S WOODSTOCK WEAK

Joni Mitchell said, "By the time we got to Woodstock we were half-a-million strong." I once published a short story in which the main character said of himself, his wife and most of the people they knew, "By the time we got to Woodstock, it was a movie." And face it, it was. That was made clear to me early on, when I attended a rock festival in Georgia and many of my fellow festival goers were already acting out Woodstock - the movie - rather than having their own good time. In a moment of clarity in my smoky haze, I remember watching them play Woodstock (mud wallowing was very popular at the time) and thinking what a sad commentary on the unoriginality of American youth that was, ignoring the fact that I was there among them. It was "Woodstock Lite" and it probably would have seemed more pathetic than it did, but I was too far gone for subtlety and nuance most of the four days I was there. Nowadays I am so overwhelmed by subtlety and nuance that I would like to get on the magic bus and head for the old fog of Woodstock. But it is a place most of us have never been, and, face it, a place we can no longer go.

Woodstock is 40 years old this week. Television will remind us. New CDs of old music are being released. The dead are being hauled out and counted. Everywhere there is talk of the "Woodstock Nation." People speak of it with fondness. But remember how we were never going to end up like our parents? Listen to the nostalgic voices of the Woodstock Nation, 40 years on. Our fathers and mothers talked about World War and the Great Depression just like that. Can you hear it?