Let’s face it: this was no one’s favorite year. Here are a few dozen reasons why.
Bum Steer Awards
Because it grew so overconfident about its ability to win Texas that it didn’t bother to figure out how to win Texas, the state’s Democratic party is our Bum Steer of the Year!
Can you help Texas's attorney general escape the long arm of the law?
The not-quite-twenty Texans who spectacularly disgraced themselves during the pandemic.
In Harris County, two public officials fought off legal challenges to hold a successful election in the middle of a pandemic.
Plus, feeling grateful for our gimlet-eyed deputy editor, Jeff Salamon.
For breaking new ground in being bad at being bad, Texas Speaker of the House Dennis Bonnen has earned one half of our annual booby prize!
For abandoning the state that had lifted him up from obscurity, Beto O’Rourke is the winner of one half of our annual booby prize!
Beto O'Rourke, Dennis Bonnen, and the Houston Astros make our annual dishonor roll, along with assorted lesser-known idiots and evildoers.
An open letter to a team that made us all proud—and then started whiffing.
The disgraced former congressman is our third runner-up for his eagerness to enrich himself—or at least pay his kennel bills—in a transparently illegal manner.
The former Dallas County sheriff, our second runner-up, ran the worst gubernatorial campaign in Texas since the last time a Democrat went up against Greg Abbott.
The former congressman’s troublesome professional ethics, alleged caddish behavior, and questionable taste in adult-size onesie pajamas made him our first runner-up.
Our Bum Steer of the Year, the radio host dragged our democracy into the same sewer he crawled out of so many years ago.
Welcome back to our annual roundup of Texas's most ridiculous and idiotic endeavors, featuring political personalities, flashy figures, and plenty of nameless ne'er-do-wells.
The Houston Texans owner nabs sixth place, for saying of his players’ decision to kneel during the National Anthem: “We can’t have the inmates running the prison.”
The Austin-based office captured third place for the botched investigation of state representative Dawnna Dukes.
The outgoing congressman takes eighth place for his refusal to face the truth about climate change.
The East Texas congressman takes seventh place for his wack-job debut as an infographic creator.
It was a year of amateurish attorneys, buck-naked burglars, credulous coal-walkers, doughnut detractors, empty-headed educators, fund-raising fabulists, grumbling graduates, hacked highway signs, ill-timed imitators, judgment-justifying Jerry Joneses, kavalier Katrinas, lime-laden locoweed, misguided mattress merchants, naive notes, outré outfits, pitmaster poseurs, questionable quarterbacks, reactive racists, slipshod spellers, taco tiffs, unwise users, vibrator vandals, would-be wrestlers, xcrement-led xpulsions, yakking yahoos, and zero zeniths.
Hey, Senator Davis! Congratulations! The results are in, and you and the Democrats won by a landslide!
Sometimes you just have to see it (and hear it) to believe it.
It was a year of appalling analogies, bare-naked Badu, collapsing Cowboys, dim-witted Daughters of the Republic of Texas, egregious Ethics Commission, felonious fishermen (not to mention frisky firefighters), G-rated (not) guards, hilarious headlines, imperial incumbents, jackass judges (as always!), klutzy kat rescuers, legendarily lame and losing Longhorns, mind-boggling menus, noncompliant Nugent, outré overtimers, pajama-clad politicians, queso quarrels, rude representatives, scuffling strippers, toilet paper–free Texas A&M, unacceptable uniformed urination, vent-escaping vipers, woefully wrongheaded wide receivers, X-asperated Xanax-heads, yuk-yuk yeggs, and zealous Z-cups.
It was a year of aggrieved actors, banned boobs, Cuban commodes, DeLay denial, errant Elmo, frisky floaters, grouchy governors, hung hoopsters, immigration insensitivity, job-seeking judges, klobbered Karl, Longhorn lushes, miffed musicians, nude no-no’s, ousted Osteens, peeved passers, quarreling queens, riled Rangers, subpar sheriffs, tiny “terrorists,” unseemly URLs, vice presidential violence, wiseacre W., x-asperated x-wives, youthful yakkers, and zoo zeal.
It was a year of angry Aggies, Baptist bravado, confused Cheney, death row drollery, enemas in evidence, fetid feet, ghetto gobbledygook, helicopter hunts, insurance idiocy, jerk judges, kin kidnappers, lawbreaking Longhorns, meshuggener misfires, NASA nimrods, Oswald online, pooped-on presidents, quick quarrels, requested roaches, scrotum-scarring Sooners, taped teenagers, unhinged urinators, visible Virgins, weaselly Whole Foods, X-rated x-classmates, yuletide yikes, and zeroed-out zebras.
No one wants to give the governor a Bum Steer. No one wants to poke fun at the elected representative of 25 million Texans. In fact, when Rick Perry launched his presidential campaign four and a half months ago, we felt compelled to defend him (a little) from the slings…
A wise man once said, “Beware of football Bum Steers.” Baseball is fine, and so is basketball, since both of those seasons will have wrapped up by the time the January issue goes to press. But football is a different story. Just when you think a player or a coach…
Executive editor Paul Burka and senior editor Anne Dingus tell the story behind January's cover story, "The 2001 Bum Steer Awards".
A year of alarming art, befuddled bus drivers, crustacean confiscators, demanding donors, entomological eats, feckless felons, garbled George W., hideous headgear, inspirational ice cream, juiced journalists, KKK kiss-offs, Lubbock lampooners, mucho manure, nada nudity, oafish officials, P.O.'d policemen, quirky queens, raunchy Republicans, shapely sideburns, thanatological toys, used uniforms, vampire vanquishers, witless waiters, x-pert x-terminators, yeoman Yankees, and zany zealots.
A year of absent atheists, barbecue bias, College Station Cinderellas, devilish Disney, exiting egrets, far-out fingernails, goatsucker galas, hysterical historians, indoctrinated inmates, junkie joinings, kosher konfusion, loaded lawyers, murderous martinis, naughty Nolan, outvoted orbiters, porcine psychics, quaff quarrels, rapture rifts, senile senators, tackling tarantulas, unconstitutional urine, variable vegetarians, Web site warnings, x-pired x-cursionists, yoicks! YA-HOO!, and zany zoning.
In 1989, after reading Texas Monthly’s annual Bum Steer Awards, Fort Worth resident Kevin Neal thought something was missing—namely, Fort Worth. Anxious to see his hometown razzed, the journalist started clipping stories from various periodicals, saving them “in a junk drawer,” and sending them to the Texas Monthly office; every…