Rodeo Ga Ga

Halfway between Johnson City and Fredericksburg, in the heart of Texas hill country, lies Stonewall. A motel, gas station cum diner, a few houses, vineyards and peach orchards. And every June, they hold the Stonewall Peach Jamboree. A rodeo. Not a flashy, glitzy big town rodeo, but one befitting a place of less than five hundred people.

Stonewall, Texas

The crowd awaits the main event

I turn up half way through the Mutton Bustin' - any kid under 70lb can rock up and see how long they can stay on the back of a sheep. What ensues is pretty funny, tiny little kids clinging on for dear life. Somehow I can't see the Health and Safety Executive allowing these kind of antics at your standard British village fête. Whoever stays on the longest wins a pair of cowboy boots. Most don't need them it would seem - there are a lot of little cowboys kicking around the place.

While the flags are ridden out they play Johnny Cash's Ragged Old Flag to the standing crowd. The undercurrent of pride and patriotism is gripping, though not a word or face betrays it. Why is this kind of display treated with such suspicion and disgust in England? Why, as a nation, are the English unable to face up to their past, accept the things that were wrong, applaud the things that were right, and embrace the essence of what it means to be English? Perhaps it is because it doesn't mean anything any more. That the lack of any cohesive identity means we forget what we stand for. Aside from drinking cups of tea and losing penalty shoot outs, of course.

Flag waving

Right now, back home, the country is no doubt deeply immersed in its quadrennial bout of flag waving. How curious it is that the only time as a nation we should engage in such activity is when a group of cashed up chavs step forth onto the world stage to 'represent' us. Standing on the steps with Americans - a nation of nations if ever there were one - and feeling the depth of their pride was enough to make me feel slightly ashamed of our awkwardness.

That's not to say that this pride can't be misplaced, as the George Bush impersonator behind the mic kept banging on about troops and armed forces and God, and the 'clown' in the middle made so many Brokeback Mountain jokes that he must surely be a bit of an Ennis himself. He even managed to drop in the odd Mexican gag too, despite the fact that the crowd was about half Mexican and he probably ate tacos for breakfast, but hey.

Cowboys - and not a quitter amongst them

In the midst of all this ruminating, the rodeo continued unabashed. Bareback riding (testicle insurance a must), barrel racing for the ladies, roping, team roping, steer wrestling, cattle scramble for the under 5s, and the grand finale, bull riding. Not to forget the audience participation event - wild cow milking - in which teams of three attempt to catch a cow and hold it still whilst one of them milks it. Coming to a village green near you...

Barrel racing

I got chatting to the girl next to me who told me her husband was a bare back rider. Right on cue, he was introduced as some all conquering cowboy champion, then came out and proceeded to cling to the back of his crazed horse for about ten minutes, in what, even to a layman like me, was quite obviously the outstanding nut-busting performance of the night. I'd get involved myself, I assured her, but I can't bring myself to wear the chaps.

All-Texas Chaps wearing Championships

Once all the fun and games were over, they let wild horses run around the arena. Cue the gushing movie soundtrack music and G Dubya started telling everyone how wild horses represent everything that makes America great - Freedom. Freedom that we owe to our troops. And to God. And Cowboys. And so on. It all begins to get a little too much for me.

I can see his point and all, but I'm sure he doesn't have to labour over it quite so much. Maybe there is something crass about this kind of collective outpouring. Why do we need anthems and flags and symbolism to hold us together as people? Maybe the English are pioneers of modern nation state patriotism, by just not caring for it at all? I mull this question over in my mind for a few moments, before deciding that I cannot possibly address the full range of its consequences without a cup of tea, and head gracefully home to pop the kettle on and ponder the meaning of it all.




Ragged Old Flag - Johnny Cash

I walked through a county courthouse square
On a park bench, an old man was sittin' there.
I said, "Your old court house is kinda run down,
He said, "Naw, it'll do for our little town".
I said, "Your old flag pole is leaned a little bit,
And that's a ragged old flag you got hangin' on it".
He said, "Have a seat", and I sat down,
"Is this the first time you've been to our little town"
I said, "I think it is"
He said "I don't like to brag, but we're kinda proud of
That Ragged Old Flag

"You see, we got a little hole in that flag there,
When Washington took it across the Delaware.
and It got powder burned the night Francis Scott Key sat watching it,
writing "Say Can You See"
It got a rip in New Orleans, with Packingham and Jackson
tugging at its seams.
and It almost fell at the Alamo
beside the Texas flag,
But she waved on though.
She got cut with a sword at Chancellorsville,
And she got cut again at Shiloh Hill.
There was Robert E. Lee and Beauregard and Bragg,
And the south wind blew hard on
That Ragged Old Flag

"On Flanders Field in World War I,
She got a big hole from a Bertha Gun,
She turned blood red in World War II
She hung limp, and low, a time or two,
She was in Korea, Vietnam, She went where she was sent
by her Uncle Sam.
She waved from our ships upon the briny foam
and now they've about quit wavin' back here at home
in her own good land here She's been abused,
She's been burned, dishonored, denied an' refused,
And the government for which she stands
Has been scandalized throughout out the land.
And she's getting thread bare, and she's wearin' thin,
But she's in good shape, for the shape she's in.
Cause she's been through the fire before
and I believe she can take a whole lot more.

"So we raise her up every morning
And we bring her down slow every night,
We don't let her touch the ground,
And we fold her up right.
On second thought
I do like to brag
Cause I'm mighty proud of
That Ragged Old Flag"

No place like home

Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent.

It’s no coincidence that I’ve hardly written anything in the last two weeks. I haven’t been travelling, but standing still. The same thing happened in Buenos Aires - I just ran out of things to talk about. On the move again, things came to life.

When you stop moving, even for a short time, the molecules settle and find their own level. You unpack your bags. You begin to know your way around. You get accustomed to people, places. You know what to expect. There might not be a routine as such, but there’s a hint of one. This isn’t a bad thing - on the contrary. With all of this comes something that warms the soul: comfort. Stand still for long enough, and a place begins to feel like home.

I don’t have a home right now. I have a 10 x 8 storage unit containing the objects that will one day be reconstituted in the form of a home. Maybe. It’s not just about a house of course, and I do have a home in England. It consists of my family and friends, and the places I know like the back of my hand. But home is where the heart is, right? Well my heart’s here, beating softly inside me. The people I know and love, together with the ones I've met along the way, they are all somewhere else.

Gran's house, New Braunfels, TX. My home for the last 2 weeks

On Wednesday morning I said goodbye to Erin, Regan and Gran, and moved on from New Braunfels. Consequently, I feel a little lost right now. Unsettled. Like one of those little snow dome things. Sat on the mantelpiece for God knows how long, wrenched from its spot, shaken and replaced (though never quite where the ring of dust had formed around it) while the snowflakes flutter and swirl around their tiny universe.

Wendell

“Aah used to have a lot a crap hangin’ round here.” Wendell’s hand nonchalantly waved toward the walls of his shack. The front porch was adorned, no covered with crap. An artificial limb, bull horns, rusted children’s toys. A hook consisting of an extended middle finger. Old bar signs, beer cans. Crap. Everywhere. Not a spare inch of bare wall. “Whatcha drinkin’ there Wendell?” someone asked, pointing at the Smirnoff Ice like liquid swirling around in the bottle. “Aah, that’s water. It’s kinda murky though.” The clock ticked past midday.

Wendell is a big guy. Around my height, six foot or so, and probably sporting a few more pounds. He looks no more than fifty but I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that he is. He has massive hands, and his shake tells you everything there is to know about him. He is a warm, generous, kind man. A funny man too, but he won’t take any shit. A Texan, through and through.

We bumped into Wendell again in an outdoor store in Austin. He was buying a knife. In the ensuing discussion of knives, he shared a story. Some kids were camping on his land down by the river, so he drove over to move them on. Spotting the baseball bat on the front seat of his truck, one of them asked if he was expecting trouble. “Nah, that’s just in case you boys were fixin’ for a game a baseball”. Unsheathing the bayonet from an AK47 he added; “This is in case there’s any trouble”.

Remember The Alamo

In amongst the shopping malls and Tex Mex restaurants of downtown San Antonio, I can't help but checking out The Alamo. There's not a lot left now obviously, but the old chapel still stands as a shrine in memory of those that died here. It is overrun with fat people, and doesn't feel especially shrine like to me, although the sign on the door touches me, most people inside fail to heed its call.

Maybe it's just the contrast with the crippling humidity outside, but an eerie chill runs through the little museum. What the hell must it have been like to just stand there and fight, knowing you were going to die, but doing it for what you believed in. On the second day of the siege, Travis, the commanding officer, sent the following despatch:


To the People of Texas & All Americans in the World

Fellow citizens & compatriots

I am besieged, by a thousand or more of the Mexicans under Santa Anna. I have sustained a continual bombardment & cannonade for 24 hours & have not lost a man. The enemy has demanded a surrender at discretion, otherwise the garrison are to be put to the sword if the fort is taken. I have answered the demand with a cannon shot, & our flag still waves proudly from the walls. I shall never surrender or retreat. Then, I call on you in the name of Liberty, of patriotism & everything dear to the American character, to come to our aid, with all dispatch. The enemy is receiving reinforcements daily & will no doubt increase to three or four thousand in four or five days. If this call is neglected, I am determined to sustain myself as long as possible & die like a soldier who never forgets what is due to his own honor & that of his country. VICTORY OR DEATH.

William Barret Travis



No wonder then that Texans have a fierce sense of patriotism. Or that the shops around downtown sell t-shirts with the outline of the state, a Colt 45 and the words "Texas - We don't dial 911". Everything starts somewhere, and so much that makes the people of this state so great can be traced back to the courage and fortitude of those that fell on this very spot.

Lone Star State

Luckily for me, I left Miami last Wednesday. My actual exit itself was unceremonious. Some excessive American Express abuse, a hangover that never materialised because I never sobered up, a taxi ride and a conversation in Creole that never quite got going, some ropey airport food, the inexplicable absence of a first class lounge and, finally, a very deep sleep. A two hour flight and a three hour drive later and I found myself outside the Hoity Toit Beer Joint in New Braunfels, Texas. Welcome to America.

I'm staying with my friend Erin, her sister Regan and their Gran, Gran. I'm here for a while, a welcome break from all the moving around of the last couple of months. And it is so nice to just live in a house for a change.

It is hot in Texas. Hot, but most of all humid. Saturday we partook in the locals’ favourite pastime - toobing (pronounced tubing) - floating down the Guadeloupe River on giant inner tubes. A cool box of beers and three hours to cover two and a half miles of river, just gently floating along under the searing Texas sun. We hook legs over each other’s tubes to form a little flotilla, but I peel off every now and then to soak up the serene beauty and just succumb to the river’s wishes. It’s a sublime sensation.

It's a good job we did it while we could. Last night saw the mother of all thunderstorms. Just before bed I sat out on the porch with a beer to watch it pass. But it lasted for five hours or so, and it just kept getting heavier. Lightning so bright you'd think the earth was on fire, and thunderclaps that shook the pictures from the wall. And rain. The heaviest rain you can imagine. A foot of it fell overnight. A biblical flood for bible country.

I like Texas. The people are unbelievably friendly, and fiercely patriotic and proud of where they're from. You rarely see a stars and stripes without the Lone Star flying alongside. They say howdy and y'all all the time. And they eat Mexican food morning noon and night. Last Friday began with breakfast tacos and ended with drive thru tacos at 2am. No wonder they're all so fat - more than a month in this place and I'd look like Michael Moore. It's a chance I'll have to take. For now y'all, I ain't goin' nowhere.

Miami: Bond, Crabs and Silken Bibs

With ceremony, a wide silver dish of crabs, big ones, their shells and claws broken, was placed in the middle of the table. A silver sauceboat brimming with melted butter and a long rack of toast was put beside each of their plates. The tankards of champagne frothed pink. Finally, with an oily smirk, the head waiter came behind their chairs and, in turn, tied round their necks long white silken bibs that reached down to the lap.

Bond was reminded of Charles Laughton playing Henry VIII, but neither Mr. Du Pont nor the neighboring diners seemed surprised at the hoggish display. Mr. Du Pont, with a gleeful "Every man for himself," raked several hunks of crab on to his plate, doused them liberally in melted butter and dug in. Bond followed suit and proceeded to eat, or rather devour, the most delicious meal he had had in his life.

The meat of the stone crabs was the tenderest, sweetest shellfish he had ever tasted. It was perfectly set off by the dry toast and slightly burned taste of the melted butter. The champagne seemed to have the faintest scent of strawberries. It was ice cold. After each helping of crab, the champagne cleaned the palate for the next. They ate steadily and with absorption and hardly exchanged a word until the dish was cleared.

With a slight belch, Mr. Du Pont for the last time wiped butter off his chin with his silken bib and sat back. His face was flushed. He looked proudly at Bond. He said reverently, "Mr. Bond, I doubt if anywhere in the world a man has eaten as good a dinner as that tonight. What do you say?"

Goldfinger - Ian Fleming

The setting for this feast was “Bills on the Beach” - in fact a place called Joe’s Stone Crab, on the southernmost point of Miami Beach. Naturally, I had every intention of recreating the experience for myself. Equally naturally, things didn’t quite pan out that way. Stone Crabs are out of season from May 15th, so there goes that one. And sitting on my own drinking a large vodka martini and ordering a tankard of pink champagne from my genial waitress who has worked at Joe’s for sixteen years would have simply marked me out as a twat.

I settle for a large vodka and tonic, a pound and a half of steamed king crab claws and the driest Sauvignon Blanc on the menu. Not without ceremony, the claws arrive on their plate, and clarified butter is poured into a dish. No-one ties a silken bib around my neck, though it would have been a nice touch if they had.

The meat is incredibly sweet and tender. I begin eating it unadorned, but occasionally furnish with a little melted butter. It has a rich, intense nutty caramel taste, almost enough to make me think they infuse it with something. But no, they keep it piping hot in huge jugs in the kitchen, so it is gently toasted a little more the longer it sits. Were the meat itself not so delicious, I would have been pouring the stuff all over the place.

I have ruminated on the splendour of the crab before. That such magnificent, prehistoric creatures should yield such sweet meat is one of the wonders of nature. And that the very tip of the claw, the deadliest, most brutal part of the beast’s anatomy, contains the sweetest flesh of any animal on the planet, the greatest of them all.

Miami is a town of gross decadence and overindulgence. Sodom and Gomorrah. Cashed up city boys smoking cigars in the pool. $250 bottles of vodka. Tanned skin sizzling under the Florida sun. Miami is like a B-list celebrity who has seen better days - propped up by botox and silicone and layered in make up. Walk past her on the street and she might look youthful and vibrant. But any more than a cursory glance and you'll realise that someone's just papered over the cracks.

It is pretty nauseating really, but exactly what I expected and in a strange way hoped for. Ian Fleming knew what I meant. Which makes me kind of glad I didn’t have to wipe melted butter from my chin with a silken bib.

Bond thought, I asked for the easy life, the rich life. How do I like it? How do I like eating like a pig and hearing remarks like that? Suddenly the idea of ever having another meal like this…revolted him. He felt momentarily ashamed of his disgust. He had asked and it had been given. He had made his wish and the wish had not only been granted, it had been stuffed down his throat. Bond said, ‘I don’t know about that, but it was certainly very good.’

Miami Vice

Wow. What a difference a day makes. With all the subtle nuances of a Snoop Dogg pool party, American Airlines plucks me from the misty streets of Quito and repatriates me, swiftly and ceremoniously, in the Shore Club, South Beach, Miami. Florida. US of A. And with that, everything changes.

I embrace my new aspect by getting into the swimmers and heading down to the pool for a couple of beers. Luckily I own mirrored shades. It's also lucky that I have a high pain threshold. Not content with charging $300 a night, these guys take you for everything you've got. 18% service charge added to every conceivable thing they can bill you for, except the Mini-Bar, which is 20%. If anyone can explain the concept of imposing a service charge on something to which you help yourself, I'd love to know. I thought it was supposed to be the Land of the Free.

I distract myself by indulging in all kinds of novelties, like speaking English, drinking tap water and flushing bog paper down the toilet rather than putting it in a small bin.