Texas Food & Music – My Addictions | 12.8.10

I do not consider myself a “Christmas Sap” by any means, but I have small children and that in itself brings out the kid in me for the December holidays.  In Texas, the sights of Christmas may include a wreath on the front grill of an F350 truck accompanied by the stiff legs of a newly shot buck deer in the back.  Or perhaps a small town courthouse lit up like a nuclear power plant.  And one of the confused-hayseed Christmas lawn art classics, a plywood cut-out of Santa kneeling at the baby Jesus in the manger.  Tradition is a powerful thing, especially in Texas where we’ll kick your ass if you don’t agree (tongue n cheek, of course).

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Robyn via Stephen Bruton, Cactus Cafe 11.17.10

Robyn via Stephen Bruton, Cactus Cafe, 11.17.10

Texas Food & Music – My Addictions | 11.12.10

Perhaps it’s gonna take one strong cold front (forecasted for today) to really kick off “winter food” season.  Or maybe the fact that Thanksgiving is less than two weeks away.  Holy Sh?t.  I guess it is time to start sifting through recipes, the grease-stained memories of past family gatherings during the Thanksgiving & Christmas Holidays.  Oh, how I can already smell the cornbread coming out of the oven in preparation for the homemade cornbread dressing.  I can almost feel the double-wide rock from my father yelling “it’s Christmas God dammit” while trying to settle an argument.  Or Grandma’s german potato salad (aka ‘farting potato salad’), don’t tell me bacon and sugar aren’t a match made in hillbilly heaven.

I know that I am not the only one from a family who chooses to air their grievances instead of giving thanks during the holidays, but somehow it just doen’t seem like a real Texas holiday if Read More

Texas Music & Food – My Addictions | 10.25.10

I just heard on the news that Club 21 dancehall in Uhland, Texas burned to the ground last night. The southern phrase “if those walls could talk” comes to mind when I think of the stories that they might have told…cowboys meeting their first wife (or future ex-wife), kids learning to two-step, a damn good bar-room brawl over who knows what or why. Where I come from, you go to a dancehall to let off steam, to dance, to watch, to drown a little sorrow, and sometimes even raise hell. I wrote “Monte Carlo”, a song off my last record about just that life…

So Blue
We’ll dance til the mornin’
Til’ we fall down or we shut down the lights
Oh darlin’ I love you
Like the cowboys love to fight
Like the Rednecks Love Saturday Night

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