The road stretched out ahead of me like a winding snake. For eight whole hours, I drove down a two lane highway. I narrowly missed a hail storm off in the distance. In most of Texas, you can see the weather coming from miles away. There really is no need for a weather man, or a weather channel. Two things are for sure. It's going to be really fucking hot, and if rain does show... you'll know immediately because the entire atmosphere suddenly changes. Bright white sun and yellow sand becomes dark gloomy blueish hues, and a wind whispers that a storm is coming.
If you're a god fearing man, who desires only your own healthy dose of the American west, with its constant reminders to the Spanish American wars, and the genocide of the Native Indian, then Texas is for you. If you're a man who who wants nothing more from life than to drive around all day in a big truck, rolling coal, blasting country, and quietly contemplating the pernicious words of Rush Limbaugh, or the maleficent gospel of Pat Robertson, Texas is also for you.
I arrived in Amarillo with a head full of mixed emotion. Scanning a radio and finding our dear savior Rush Limbaugh on no less than 12 separate radio stations can do that to a man. But my father was kind enough to find me a room to rest my weary head. "Texas is behind me," I thought to myself as I quietly fell asleep to the hotel TV. But Texas still had plenty to teach me.
The last two hours of driving through Texas felt like the previous day's eight. I recall at one point stopping in Channing, Texas. Presumably Channing Tatum was named after this town, because much like his acting, it was a hollow and meaningless spit of land. In it, I drove past a billboard that proclaimed, "Coming Soon to Channing, Texas: OUR FIRST HOSPITAL!" You know things are backwards when your shitty little town has no less that five McDonalds, but in 2014 you're finally getting your very own Hospital!
I can say this about Texas. Austin is a badass city. A lot of people like to refer to it as "The Loophole in the Bible Belt", I can say I'd be inclined to agree with them. However I can also say with a great certainty, and it's extremely unfortunate but my honest truth, that the Austin-loophole in the bible belt just isn't loose enough to loosen the gastrointestinal stranglehold it has on the rest of Texas. The Mad Max-ian wasteland we call Texas is a literal representation of the Stephen King book "Under the Dome." Driving through this state, and hearing the complete and utter disconnect of the people who live there, was nothing short of terrifying. The way their political disc jockeys and gospel preachers describe the world, and the way the world really is are so far from each other you could fit a galaxy in between. It's complete insanity, intertwined with blissful ignorance.
I keep hearing murmurs and rumors of Texas wanting to secede from the Union. Let me go ahead and throw my two cents in.... LET THEM. Our country is better off without this gaping Christian wound in its side. I constantly hear about them wanting to build a wall across the Mexican border.... LET THEM. Let them build a wall across the border, and then let them keep going until the entire state is quarantined like some Escape from Rick Perry's conservative American Museum of Creationism and American Exceptionalism. Let them build the wall, and keep their motto: "Dont Mess With Texas."
You know why no one Messes with Texas? Because why the fuck would you want to? Texas fucking sucks.
So, there we have it, my Texas experience finally recorded and presented here for your contemplation and review. If you ever want to go to Austin, that's great.... but take my advice... and FLY. Fly like the wind! But never drive through Texas, not unless you enjoy 8 hour shifts of this:
Not unless your a Masochist, and enjoy long, agonizing periods of pain. If a landscape, full of open carry, Obama birther, flag suckers is your thing.... then I'm here to tell you, Heaven is Real.
It's alive in Texas.
