The 1986 Bum Steer Awards
IT’S A GOOD THING THAT TEXAS’ SESQUICENTENNIAL YEAR is here at last, because number 149 wasn’t good for much except Bum Steers. The price of oil went down, and the price of Southwest Conference football players went up. The Legislature started out to cut the budget and ended up tripling college tuition. Bill Clements came back into politics, and Benny Eureste left politics. Mark White left too—for Honduras.
Attorney general Jim Mattox beat a felony rap. The baseball Rangers didn’t beat anybody. The Spurs, Rockets, and Mavericks quickly exited the NBA play-offs. The state tourist agency said that Texas has the best fall foliage, and New England took notice. The New York Times said that Houston has the Amon Carter Museum, and Fort Worth took notice. Billy Clayton switched political parties, and no one took notice.
Some things never change. Billie Sol Estes got indicted, and the Oilers fired their coach. Horse racing didn’t get out of the legislative starting gate. Clinton Manges didn’t pay his Gunslingers football team. And speaking of money troubles, the bankruptcy courts had some unlikely visitors: Clint Murchison, Sakowitz, the Hunt brothers.
Of all the boos and boo-boos, one stands out as worthy of joining such past notables as George Bush, Carolyn Farb, Jackie Sherrill, Mike Martin, J. R. Ewing, and Farrah Fawcett as Bum Steer of the Year. For producing the longest unbroken string of Texas clichés ever compiled, we salute . . .James Michener and his not-so-novel Texas.
WHAT’S BLACK AND WHITE AND UNREAD ALL OVER?
Its first printing of 750,000 sold out.
More than a million copies have already been sold.
And why not? After all, wasn’t James Michener invited to Texas back in 1981 by our very own Governor Bill Clements to write a novel honoring Texas’ 150th birthday? Didn’t he get his own office at the University of Texas and all the research help he wanted? Didn’t he have access to every nabob of the state?
Doesn’t James Michener deserve something special?
You bet he does—the 1986 Bum Steer Award. Michener’s Texas makes J.R.’s Dallas look like an informed and sophisticated portrayal of Texas today. Ordinarily we’d say, “Don’t take our word for it, folks. Read it yourself.” But as far as we can tell, no one has. So, as a public service, here’s everything you need to know about James Michener’s Texas.
MICHENER ON RULES TEXANS LIVE BY
Want to make it big in Texas? Here, in the mortal words of Michener’s characters, is how to do it.
• “Don’t never steal cows in Texas, boy. Down here they play by different rules.”
• “If you’re gonna do it, son, do it Texas-style.”
• “A Texan who can’t handle a gun ain’t fit to be a Texan.”
• “A handshake is a handshake, and by God, you better not forget it.”
• “Never forget, son, when you represent Texas, always go first class.”
• “Son, would you pee on your mother’s grave? To befoul Texas football is the same thing.”
• “Life in Texas is like a giant crap game, a perpetual gamble.”
• “A good chicken-fried steak smothered in white gravy, or a big slab of barbecue with baked beans and potato salad, that’s a man’s food.”
• “If you grab enough Texas land, somethin’ good is bound to happen.”
• “The University of Texas has one overriding obligation. To turn out football teams of which the state can be proud.”
• “If I have only one life to live, one dent to make, I want to make it where it counts, in Texas.”
MICHENER ON WHY TEXAS IS TEXAS
Are we smarter? Braver? Tougher? Meaner? None of the above. We’ve got anomie.
“Anomie is the emotional state of mind we are apt to fall into when we are wrenched away from familiar surroundings and thrown into perplexing new ones. The two key words for me are disorientation at first, followed by alienation if it continues long enough. . . .
“I have no opinion whatever as to whether our great-great-grandfathers were criminals or rowdies or gentlemen scholars. All I’m concerned with is: ‘How did they behave? What did they actually do?’ And when I study that restricted body of information, I must conclude that most of them experienced anomie. . . .
“Texas has always been a neurotic place, a breeding ground for anomie. But it’s the neuroticism of activity, of daring, and I hope it never changes, even though the cost can sometimes be so tragic.”
DID HE REALLY SAY THAT?
Somehow we weren’t surprised to come across the following lines:
• “The Texan who guns down his neighbor does not visualize himself as committing a crime.”
• “They were Texas gamblers and they did not whimper.”
• “This isn’t an ordinary ranch. This is a Texas ranch.”
• “Sounds illegal,” Cobb said, but Lakarz corrected him: “Sounds Texan.”
• “This is heroic land and it demands heroic people.”
AND WHAT IF I DON’T?
Two plastic flamingos were taken from Nancy Prather’s yard in Grand Prairie. One came back with its beak taped shut and a ransom note attached to its body reading, “If you ever want to see your other flamingo again, then place a dollar and a half in a Gucci briefcase.”
THEY’RE HANDLING THE CASE PRO BONE-O
Martin Pinnas of Houston hired two attorneys, whose usual fee is a $10,000 retainer plus $300 an hour, to help resolve a divorce case in which he said the only issue was who would get custody of the family dog.
FILE IT IN THE PORTFOLIO NEXT TO “40 PER CENT OF THE TEXAS LEGISLATURE”
In a land deal, Houston investor and power broker Walter Mischer bought 12 per cent of the nation of Belize.
GUANO TO TEXAS
Dr. Merlin Tuttle of Milwaukee, the founder of Bat Conservation International, announced that he wanted to move his organization and research to Austin, which he called “bat nirvana land.”
ESPECIALLY OF THE BRAIN
Donnie Trest of Houston parachuted off a broadcast tower while dressed in a gorilla suit. After being arrested for criminal trespass he explained that he made the jump to attract attention to the need for more research for cancer.
GOOD SAMARITAN, PART I
When a tractor-trailer truck overturned on a Houston freeway, pinning the driver underneath the wreckage, Don Fowler used a crane that was in the back of his pickup to save the driver’s life. Then a highway patrolman issued Fowler a ticket because the crane was too heavy for his truck.
GOOD SAMARITAN, PART II
Xanthe Johnson of New Braunfels rescued a kitten tossed into the Guadalupe River by a man who first held it in front of two large barking dogs. When she cursed at the man after recovering the animal, she was arrested for disorderly conduct and fined $200.
WE UNDERSTOOD HIM THE FIRST TIME
Raymond L. Flynn, mayor of Boston, said in San Francisco, “I came here from Dallas—the worst! Lowest of the low. The Kennedy Memorial is a disgrace. The buildings are horrible. The only people you see on the streets are the poor blacks who clean the horrible buildings.” Later his press secretary said, “The mayor was referring to the architecture of Dallas, while maintaining a great respect for the people of Dallas and for all Texans.”
CHANGE AT TWO FOR THE EXECUTIVE SUITE
The first elevator in the town of Hondo was installed in a three-story office building.
IT MUST HAVE BEEN STRIP STEAK AND RUMP ROAST
After police in Humble arrested Cynthia Ann Oakley for shoplifting and led her to a patrol car, her panties fell down to her ankles, and three steaks and a twelve-and-a-half pound roast fell out.
THE BULL DIED LAUGHING
The Diez y Seis de Septiembre celebration in Laredo featured thirteen midget bullfighters from Mexico performing in a special midget bullfight.
DON'T ORDER THE STEAK TARTARE
Real estate developers announced that Cullen Davis’ 20,000-square-foot mansion in Fort Worth, the scene of a 1976 murder and shooting spree for which Davis was tried and acquitted, will be converted into a restaurant.
THE DEFENSE CALLS SIR ISAAC NEWTON
Dancer Morganna Roberts, who claims to have a sixty-inch bustline, was charged with criminal trespass after she interrupted a Houston Astros game by running onto the field and kissing two players. Criminal defense attorney Richard “Racehorse” Haynes said she did not intend to go onto the field, but when she leaned forward from her first-row seat, she fell over the railing. “Anybody who understands the law of gravity will understand it,” said Haynes.
THEY WOULDN'T HAVE NOTICED ANYWAY
In a brochure designed by the Texas Education Agency to prepare students for upcoming tests, one question began, “Which, if any, of the following words are mispelled?” “Mispelled” was misspelled.
THIS TIME GOD REACHED DOWN AND SAID,"TELL IT TO THE JUDGE”
Religious book publisher Word Incorporated of Waco revealed that it was postponing the release of new books, films, and records by popular Christian author Joyce Landorf, whose work tells “how God can reach down to heal marriages,” after Mrs. Landorf announced her impending divorce.
JUDGE JERRY SAYS CHECK IT OUT
In his opinion upholding a ban on girlie magazines for inmates in the Dallas County jail, federal judge Jerry Buchmeyer described one magazine in the style of drive-in movie reviewer Joe Bob Briggs: “Extremely disappointing garbonza count: 25 ½. No blood. No breasts. No Kung Fu. Four biker chases. Biker fiction, biker cartoons, biker letters, biker horoscopes, biker suspenders. Four wasted pages of fully clothed bimbos.”
MOREOVER, NOT ONE OF MY PATIENTS SUFFERS FROM THE HEARTBREAK OF CRABGRASS
Dr. Nicholas Bachynsky of Houston is being sued by the state attorney general’s office for prescribing a weed killer named 2,4 Dinitrophenol in his diet clinics. “In the ten thousand people we’ve treated, there have been no deaths,” he said. “What have I done that’s been illegal? Where are the dead people?”
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