Let’s Make Fun of a State: Texas

I Know This Is Going to Be a BIG Mistake

If you are one of the Facebook readers who comes to Medium only to glean predigested content, you may not be aware that this title is part of a series. I say this only because it pains me. I’ve noticed that when posts get widely shared on Facebook the numbers are fan-fucking-tastic, but all of my best posts are behind me. You see, I have been making fun of states for a while. I made fun of Michigan, South Dakota, and Rhode Island. Those posts were funny! I can’t vouch for this one.

If you are still reading it’s probably either because: a) you hate Texas, or b) You are from Texas and can’t wait to hate me. So, you see, everyone is hate reading, which is fine, especially if you are a visitor from Hatebook.

Visiting Hatebook readers should know that Medium allows for what is called “longform shitposting”, which means that the nothingness can be drawn out into a six- or seven-minute read. We don’t count words anymore, reading is measured by minutes. So if you wanted quick hate, you’re out of luck. This post is about Texas, so there is going to be A LOT of stupidity. I mean BIG stupidity. BIG BEEFY STUPIDITY… with spurs… and maybe one of those shirts that looks like a Mondrian painting with star in the center… and a hat. We can’t forget the hats. Texans are BIG into hats. Here is a famous Texan wearing many different hats.

Being a “Texan” Is Complicated

Carol Burnett was born in San Antonio, Texas. By second grade she had moved to California. So, is she a Texan? It’s hard to say. Texans are kind of sticky about who is and who is not a Texan. I’m not sure who they sub-vocalize for, but I do know that Carol Burnett eventually moved to New York, and that makes her a New Yorker.

As Ed Koch said, “To be a New Yorker you have to live here for six months, and if at the end of the six months you find you walk faster, talk faster, think faster, you’re a New Yorker.”

Whether you can be both a Texan and a New Yorker is an interesting metaphysical question. It’s one that is, unfortunately, outside the scope of this longform shitpost.

I understand why Texans are uptight. If you are from Texas, people can call you “Tex”, and you can’t just let everyone go around calling themselves “Tex”. Imagine, “Tex Gutbloom”, “Tex Kardashian”, and “Texas Trump.”

I’m kind of glad Lyle Lovett makes it so clear:

It’s not nasty, though. He even says, “But Texas wants you anyway.” That’s nice, isn’t it?

The Symbolic Importance of the Longhorn

Texas has three (3!) state mammals. The Texas state small mammal is the nine-banded armadillo. The Texas state flying mammal is the Mexican free-tailed bat, and the Texas state large mammal is the Longhorn.

Longhorns are a good symbol for Texas. They are big, tough Spanish cows that are independent, drought resistant, and graced with giant horns. They also calve easily.

Of course, we wouldn’t have any Longhorns today if it were not for the United States Forest Service. Yes, the Federal Government saved the longhorn from “near extinction” in the 1920s. The next time the Texan on the bar stool next to you starts to go on about how they were the only independent nation before becoming a state, remember to remind him that if it were not for Los Federales they couldn’t say “hook ’em horns” with their fingers outstretched like an Ozzy Osbourne fan. Instead, they would be trying to make an armadillo gesture with their clenched fist and thumb, or flapping their hands like bat wings during football games. Thanks Coolidge!

Bluebonnets

The state flower of Texas is the bluebonnet, a flower endemic to Texas and supposedly named after the hat worn by pioneer women. Here is a picture of some bluebonnets.

Oh, wait. Those aren’t bluebonnets. Those are just regular old lupines in New Hampshire. What? They look exactly like bluebonnets? Maybe that’s because bluebonnets are just lupines. Lupines! You find lupines everywhere in North America. In the spring, I can’t swing a dead cat in my yard without hitting a lupine.

OK, OK. Bluebonnets (Texas Lupine) is a genuine sub-species, and, yes, it is endemic to Texas. Maybe the color is special. Not that the rest of the country doesn’t have lots of colors of lupines… but let’s not be too hard on Texas. They like their lupines. I think they achieved an advertising coup with the name. When you look at lupines, do you think “that looks like a pioneer woman’s hat”, or do you think… I don’t know… something along the lines of, “that looks like a clitoral hood”? You know, I think I’m going to start a campaign to get the state flower of my state changed to “clitoral hoods” or “penis plants.” Both would be more germane to the debased and sophomoric mores of our current culture than the name “bluebonnet”.

Chili

I don’t think that there is any doubt; chili is a Texas dish. It was originally a combination of beef, suet, chili peppers and salt fashioned into a brick and then dehydrated so it could be taken on the “trail”. Whether chili should have beans or not is a question similar to “Do Balrogs have wings” or “Is Macedonia part of Greece”? Balrogs don’t have wings, Macedonia is not part of Greece, and chili isn’t made with beans, but me writing those “facts” doesn’t settle the debate, does it?

Here is the hard part. Texas really did invent chili. We have to give them that. Now, would you want to be the state that invented chili? Chili? I mean, don’t get me wrong, I eat the stuff. I make chili, but having chili as your state’s claim to fame is kind of depressing, isn’t it? It makes “clam cakes” sound like haute cuisine. Who really likes chili? What’s the difference between good chili and bad chili? Half a bowl? That sounds about right. I’ll eat three bowls of good chili, and I’ll eat two and a half of bad chili.

I think they should put more stock in meat cones, which were also invented in Texas.

What About Those Clam Cakes?

Texas has 367 miles of coastline. Rhode Island has 40, and Rhode Island calls itself the “ocean state” and has a fucking wave on its license plate. Maine, Maine! has less coastline and shoreline than Texas. While it is true that Stonington, ME beat out Brownsville, Texas by four spots on the list of U.S. fishing ports ranked by dollars, Texas doesn’t put blue crabs on its license plates.

So, I have to ask you Texans, why don’t you put clams in chili?

Everything Is Big in Texas

Normally, when we make fun of a state we have to comb through the short list of celebrities to find people to comment on. In the case of Texas, the list is exhaustive. There are a lot of Texans. So this is going to take some time.

Gutbloom’s List of Good Texans:

• Carrol Burnett

Gutbloom’s List of Bad Texans:

• Lance Armstrong (Total Texan)
• George W. Bush (maybe not really from Texas)
• Roger Clemens (maybe not really a Texan)
• David Koresh (definitely a Texan)
• Oliver North (really from Texas)
• Jack Ruby (Really not from Texas)

I’m kidding. There are lots of good Texans. Here are some:

Gutblooms List of Good Texans

• Alexainie
• Tex Avery
• Sonny Bohanan
• The Big Bopper
• Simone Biles
• Earl Campbell

• Sandy Cheeks
• Sandra Cisneros
• Albert Collins
• Ornette Coleman
• James Cotton
• Ruben Habito
• Jim Hightower
• Buddy Holly
• Molly Ivins
• JB
• LBJ
• Jack Johnson
• George Jones
• Janis Joplin
• Scott Joplin
• Beyonce
• Lead Belly
• Alan Lomax
• Richard Linklater
• Mac McCarty
• Stella J. McKenna
• Eve Moran
• Naka Nathaniel (though he is really from the Kwajalein Atoll)
• Chester Nimitz
• Sandra Day O’Connor
• Andy Pettite
• Gary Reasons
• Ann Richards
• Jimmy Rogers (not really from Texas)

• Gene Roddenberry
• The Ross Sisters

• Nolan Ryan
• Matt Stone
• Sly Stone

• Michael Strahan
• Barry White
• Edgar Winter

• Johnny Winter
• Randy Velarde

If you have read this far, I think you have figured out that I don’t know anything about Texas. I’ve only been there once. You want to hear the story? Why not? It’s like the third bowl of chili.

The Story of My One Trip to Texas

I visited a friend who was in film school at the University of Texas, Austin. She had moved to Texas from Virginia (just like Sam Houston!) where we had met.

I don’t know if 1989 Austin was “weird” Austin, post-weird Austin, or pre-post-weird Austin. As far as I was concerned, it was wonderfully weird.

She was living in a hippie house in a cheap part of town. There were always four or five long hairs sitting around the living room smoking pot and watching either Grateful Dead concerts or anime. No stranger to hippie pot-smokers, I found them good company. One of them heated a tortilla over a gas flame on the stove. It was the first time I had ever seen someone do that. They also showed me how to make migas. I’ve never been successful at making migas, and I’ve often wondered if its because I’m not stoned, the TVs not on, or I smell too good.

While in Austin I went to watch some bad poetry/performance art. A woman stomped around on a makeshift stage and broke glasses and plates. The very next day, while helping my friend move a “band” in her van, I explained what I had seen the night before to a petite gothic woman with long black hair. She told me, in a deadpan Texas accent, “I know her. That bitch fucked me with a dildo.” It was said without affect. A simple statement of fact. I don’t think it was any kind of metaphor. I’m no barbarian, so I didn’t react, and the conversation about poetry continued.

I also went to some classes and a baseball game at the University of Texas. I decided that I should have gone to UT, where one can both train the mind and squander it on baseball.

My friend worked as a PA on Austin City Limits, so I got to go see the workings of that studio, and her boyfriend played guitar. We went out one evening to watch him sing Hank Williams songs at an open mike night. Really, he was from Texas and he was playing Hank Williams on a guitar in a bar. A bunch of big, loud, semi-drunk guys got excited and started howling like dogs each time he broke into a new song. You would think it was the corniest thing in the world, but it wasn’t. It was great.

When I wouldn’t stop talking about a plate of red beans and rice I had eaten that only cost $2.50, my friend said that there was a place that her brother, who was from Seattle, had become obsessed with. She told me I should go there.

It was a taco stand in the center of a small, sleepy, traffic-triangle. I don’t know if it had running water. I guess it had electricity. Inside was a woman who had a hand-lettered cardboard sign with the following ingredients neatly printed in two columns: beans, eggs, potatoes, meat, chorizo, cheese. There are 15, 2-item combinations in that list, and I am pretty sure I ate them all over four days.

That’s all of the first-hand knowledge I have of Texas, but just because I don’t know about something or someone doesn’t mean I can’t write about it. I’ve never even seen a dolphin penis, but I wrote about them, didn’t I?

Thank you for reading this far into the mire.

Others in This Series

• Let’s Make Fun of a State: Michigan
• Let’s Make Fun of a State: Rhode Island
• Let’s Make Fun of a State: South Dakota
• Let’s Make Fun of a State: Texas