VII. U.S. Highway 84. Lubbock.
Clapp Park Exit.
Population: 173,979
Elevation: 2,900
Climate: Hot/cold
Topography: High Plains
Historical Oddity: None.
Prominent Amenity: An airport.
Category: Ranching, wheat-growing.
Best One-word Description: Siberian.
Insight: A cabernet, Pheasant Ridge 1983, from Lubbock's Llano Estacado
("Staked Plains") winery won the gold medal at a recent San Francisco wine fair.
1. First we reshape the world map, then we start the new age. Unpropitious omens, many
sacrifices.
–New Adam
* * *
2. America, the second great civilization destroyed by
Christianity? Or will those Christian bombs get the whole world this time? That seems to
be what the Western religionists have all these years been after.
–Trail Boss
* * *
2a. Queen Elizabeth and Princess Di is out driving, and they git
stopped by this hold-up man. He tells the queen he wants her diamond crown, but she says
she left it at home. So he tell Di he wants that big wedding ring he seen on TV, and she
says she left it on the nightstand. The old boy says, fuck it, I'll just take the Rolls
Royce, and he drives off. The queen and Di start up to walkin back to town, and Di says, I
thought you had your crown with you. The queen blushes and says, I did but I hid it, you
know, down there. They walk a little ways farther and the queen says, what about your ring
that you had on? Di admits that she hid it in the same place. They keep on walkin and
finally the queen says, what a shame we didn't have Princess Margaret with us. We could
have saved the Rolls.
–Mud Flap
* * *
3. The many threads reduce to two: identity, and outrageous
fortune.1
–Wild Man
* * *
4. The soul loose in the playpen of time and men.
–Zig-zag Joy
* * *
5. Beethoven's even-numbered symphonies.2
–All Fingers
* * *
6. She was fightin mad. Tore all the headliner up in that car.
Don't that knock your dick in the dirt? Liked to kill me if I hadnt jumped out in that
muddy water.
–Half a Dollar.
* * *
7. The years of the wolf are unrelenting.
–Black Diamond
* * *
8. Try candles.
–Hyundai Hunk
* * *
9. After Brazil, what?3
–Gulf Stream
* * *
10.
–You got a black man for your chauffeur?
–Nope.
–You got a Hispanic for your gardener?
–Nope.
–You got a Chinaman cookin in your kitchen?
–Nope.
–Then you prejudiced.
* * *
10b. God, freedom, and immortality will one day form the basis of
spiritual physics in just the same way that the sun, light, and heat form the basis of
material physics.
–Novalis
* * *
11. Always return borrowed books promptly, and you will make
unexpected close and valuable friends.
–Gray Wolf
* * *
11a. One mornin Sister Josephus asks her class which part of the
body gits to heaven first. Little Eddie wants to answer, but the Sister calls on Mary Ann,
who says, it's the heart, cause that's the part the loves God. Sister Josephus then calls
on little Susan, who says, the soul, cause that's the immortal part. Finally she calls on
Eddie, who says, the feet. Sister Josephus looks puzzled and says, why the feet, Eddie?
Eddie says, cause this mornin I saw my mama wavin her feet in the air and yellin, I'm
coming, God, I'm comin!
–Mud Flap
* * *
12. What century has not hated–and punished–itself?
–Mona Lisa
* * *
13. Beware art as Lethe. What are you trying to forget?
–Tinfoil Seagull
* * *
14. Cleansing. Deeds? Words? Money? Art? "Love"?
"Faith"? No. Only the breath truly cleanses–and makes possible those other
things. The breathless age! (Kundalini stirs...)
–New Adam
* * *
15. The seed of British problems first became visible as a strange
flower in the works of Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll. In the beginning was the word, but
not in the end–and this the logo-narcissist Albionites forgot. No wonder their
despair is so bitter, so convincing–and so entertaining. No wonder the best fiction
and the best drama in the world is written by that tiny handful of Britons who can rein in
their despair.
–Horny Teen
* * *
16. You know that feller, Carl Bernstein, the one that got old
Tricky Dick Nixon? His next assgnment was, he heard about this here champion coon hunter
down in Georgia, so he goes down and finds him, and the hunter agrees to take him out.
Only one thing, this hunter don't believe in guns. His secret is his old dog, Blue. What
he does is, Blue'll tree a coon, the hunter'll shake the tree till the coon falls out,
then old Blue fucks the coon to death. Old Carl Bernstein aint about to go off in the bush
without no gun, so the hunter agrees to let him take one. And off they go one night. Fore
long, Blue's sniffed out this giant coon and pretty soon gets him treed. The hunter starts
shakin the tree but that old giant coon just won't let go, so the hunter climbs the tree
to get him out. Old Carl, standin' below, hears some rustlin in the branches, then he
spots the coon and sees him reach over and bite the hunter real good, and here comes that
old hunter fallin out of the tree, and just as he hits the ground good and hard, he shouts
at Bernstein, "Shoot Blue! Shoot Blue!"
–Mud Flap.
* * *
17. There is only one day.
–Orange Krishna
* * *
18. It's been a long time since I hadn't seen you anymore.
–Candy Bar.4
* * *
19. Fools deny the earth thinks, and feels.
–Celia Celia
* * *
20. You din't hurt my feelings. I'm a mite tired, and my emotions
are that way when I'm tired. I don't care. Let it set there.
–Brass Monkey.
* * *
21. Proof? Go within, go within.
–Wild Man
* * *
22. Dreams the byplay of chemical interaction, brain static? Of
course, and surgeons used to wear the same longcoat for each operation, because they
prided themselves on the layers of accumulated filth. The success of one's career could be
read from the gore on one's gown.
–Mr. Camp
* * *
23. We are constantly visited, constantly attended, though rarely
interfered with.
–UFO
* * *
24. The person probly just has a radio and no one to talk to. All
he has to say is 'break,' or just innerduce himself.
–Tailgater.
* * *
25. Men can no longer be excused, or allowed, their brutality. At
work, they think it is serious; at play, fun. The earth is in pain, and we with it.
–Mahalia
* * *
26. This old army doctor's lookin' this here recruits private
parts over, you know, for dingleberries and what not. Then he skins the head, and lets it
slide back. But he ain't sure if he saw somethin, so he does it again. This old country
boy recruit looks down at the doc and says, "Scuse me, sir, if that's for the
government, you do it yore way. But if it's for me, a little faster, please."
–Falcon.
* * *
27. Beware the public patriots. They are as dangerous as the
public pray-ers.
–Tasmanian Devil
* * *
28. Beware beatless music. It comes from people with stiff spines.
–Backdoor Man
* * *
29. Beware people who are always waving their hidden cocks.
–38 Special
* * *
30. Nature heals. Nature heals. Nature heals.
–Gray Wolf
* * *
31. Contemplate that which will remind you to be more careful with
your life.
–Mahalia
* * *
32. Notes on the edges of incomprehensible maps.
–Happy Marmoset
* * *
33. Beware the hormonal religionists.
–Bullwinkle
* * *
34. One price of Vietnam is that for a couple of decades the
stupid inherited the American government.
–Happy Marmoset
* * *
35. She is one stuck-up bitch, I'm telling you. She thinks she's
God herself.
–Brown Eyes.
* * *
36. Chess, in its metaphysical unidimensionality, is finally
trivial. Poker, as it hammers its way crudely toward telepathy, is pertinent.
–Jack Flash
* * *
37. I got me a blowtorch, I use it on them old boys at work. Burns
real blue when I get to cuttin their hair, doncha know. I think it's sulfur or something.
The EPA'll probly get on me one of these days.
–Black Diamond
* * *
The Texas Tao
continues...
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