Not Everyone Wants Willie for President

  I suck at writing about politics.

  It’s just that simple.

  How I wish I had the talent of Matt Taibbi who writes a lot of stuff for “Rolling Stone” and other big magazines.  His line about Rick Perry in a story back in 2011 made me laugh out loud:  “…[Perry] cracks a smug grin, looking like he's just sewn up the blue ribbon in a frat-house dong-measuring contest.”*

  I miss Molly Ivins who went “on to Glory” 11 years ago.  She could WRITE, and write with humor.  Like her view of politics in far west Texas:  “At a meeting last year of the Texas Civil Liberties Union board, vicious hate crimes against gays in both Dallas and Houston were discussed. I asked the board member from Midland if they’d been having any trouble with gay-bashing out there. “Hell, honey,” she said, with that disastrous frankness one can grow so fond of, “there’s not a gay in Midland would come out of the closet for fear people would think they’re a Democrat.”**

  Without Molly there appears to be no one to have some tongue-in-cheek fun with politics and issues, like that billboard that popped up west of Amarillo recently.  You know, the one that read:  “Liberals…Please continue on I-40 until you have left our GREAT STATE OF TEXAS.”

  I can just imagine Molly Ivins would’ve had grand fun with that.

  Naw, you really won’t see me writing too much about politics.  For one thing things have gotten WAY too serious regarding politics and for another I just can’t see that’s there’s anything I’m gonna write that’ll amuse hyper-partisans or persuade anyone to see politics the way I do.

  One of the nicest compliments I ever received was from the editor of the local newspaper who simply said:  “You know, I can’t tell what your politics are.”

  But (pssst) I’ll tell you, dear Reader:  I believe we should work to compromise and get along with each other.  You know, “United we stand, divided we fall” and all that.

  I generally keep my mouth shut about politics and religion for three reasons.  Reason 1 is once upon a time in America there was a social rule:  Don’t talk about religion or politics with friends. 

  Reason 2:  My radio boss told me to not get involved in “Hot topics and burning issues” like politics.

  Reason 3:  I like to follow the advice of Saint Elvis about being an entertainer.  Back during the Vietnam War years Elvis was approached by a reporter who asked for his thoughts about The War to which he replied:  “Honey, I’d just as soon keep my own personal views about that to myself.  I’m just an entertainer and I’d rather not say.”

   I’m a storyteller and bullshitter…a member of the entertainer tribe…so I TRY to follow St. Elvis’ advice.

  I especially lay low about politics after a lesson I got a number of years ago in New Mexico’s Pecos Valley.

Actual factual picture of the radio station 
where I used to work in Roswell, New Mexico.  
It ain't a country station any more.

  I was working at the country station in Roswell in 1990, just having a grand time but I didn’t make a helluva lot of money.

  Rhonda the Remarkable Roswell Radio Receptionist told me once upon a time:  “I saw y’all’s paychecks.  I never knew how y’all made it on so little money.

 So me and my buddy Wayne, who also worked at the station, had a “side gig” being disc jockeys at big parties and dances.

  I have to give credit and a tip of the hat to The Boss back then who turned a blind eye to us using the station equipment and music for those gigs.

  We’d disc jockey high school dances in Carrizozo, play the music for an oil company barbecue south of Roswell in Loco Hills, trek up to Ruidoso to blast out the tunes for a reunion, stuff like that.

  Then there was this one gig…

  Wayne and I were called on to disc jockey a big party for a bunch of Roswell area ranchers.

  We loaded up my Thunder Wagon, an old 1970’s station wagon I had, and rolled on in to a fancy place just outside Roswell.

  Everybody arriving on the scene was dressed way better’n we were.  Starched and pressed shirts, starched and pressed and creased jeans, high-dollar Stetsons.  I’m just sayin’ this was a big coin, high-dollar crowd.

  And so the partyin’ began.  We played George Strait and new country stuff and more George Strait and me and Wayne made sure folks were having a good time with the good tunes.

  Then I believed it was time to play some Willie.

  Anyone who knows anything about Country music knows who I’m talking about:  Texas pickin’, pot smokin’, free-wheelin’, outlawin’ Willie Nelson.

  Since I don’t know when, folks have kidded around about electing Willie president.  Easy goin’, friend to everyone Willie Nelson in the White House.

  So I’m getting ready to spin some Willie for these dapperly dressed southeast New Mexico ranchers.  I grab the microphone.

  “Let’s two-step to some Willie now,” I said, then I yelled.  “HEY, HOW ABOUT WILLIE NELSON FOR PRESIDENT?!?!”

  I expected a reaction like I’d seen at Willie’s 4^th of July picnics, expected the roar of the crowd in approval.

  But this was NOT just outside Austin, Texas.

  Nope, I was in cattle and oil country, the part of New Mexico some historical types call “Little Texas.”

  There was stone cold silence in the room.

  Immediately I knew I had breached some unspoken etiquette, done did a faux-pas, not gotten a much needed memo.

  For one reason or another this group wasn’t fond of the idea of Willie Nelson for President.

  “Alrighty then,” I said.  “Sorry about that, politics and dancing don’t mix.”

  I stalled for a little bit of time so I could switch out songs.

  “So,” I yelled, “How about Hank Williams Junior for Secretary of Defense???”

  Hoots and hollers came from the crowd as I fired up a Hank Jr. two-steppin’ tune.

  Wayne sidled over to me.

  “Bro,” said Wayne, “This ain’t a Willie crowd.  Thought you mighta had a feel for that.”

  “Yeah,” I said leaning over toward him so he could hear me above the music, “One of those things you learn by doing.  But hey, I really thought EVERYONE likes Willie.”

  After that night never again would I mention politics at dances I was disc jockeying.

  My learning days weren’t over though.

  Not long after that I learned not to bring Rap or Hip-Hop CDs to country dances.

  But that’s another story.

-30-

*“Rick Perry:  Best Little Whore in Texas,” “Rolling Stone,” 26 Oct 2011

**“Is Texas America?,” “The Nation,” 30 Oct 2003

Jailbreaks I Have Known

  I’ve had some thoughts about jailbreaks since three inmates skedaddled away from the jail here in the county seat a few days ago.  They spent 4 days running around town before the cops captured them in a big SWAT-type operation about a mile from the county lockup.

  Jailbreaks can be a hot topic.

  Lots of folks have lots to say about ‘em:  About the escapees, about the folks who run the jail, about this, about that, and then before you know it we’re arguing amongst ourselves over national politics and stuff.

  All because some folks made a bad choice.

  When we talk about people locked up in the county detention center there are all kinds of opinions.

  A number of people in county jails haven’t had their day in court.  Then again a number of them are in there for doing stupid shit.

  There’s a number of people on the outside who look at the residents of county jails as a lifeform somewhat no better than cattle.

  When you ask some outside jail what they’d think if they were tossed in the can they might be the type who’d say, “That’ll never happen to me!”

  And yet there are those who find themselves in jail over such things as accidentally underpaid fines or situations that blew up in their face…fighting over a parking spot at Wal-Mart for instance.

  Thing is I’ve always believed there’s a lot of folks in jail who’ve done dumb shit but didn’t have the money to bond themselves out or pay for a decent attorney.

  One time I was with a co-worker at the county fairground when we passed by some county jail inmates in orange jumpsuits working on a project.

  The co-worker rolled up her window and locked the car door.

  “What’s that about?” I asked.

  “Protecting myself against the inmates,” she said.

  I laughed.

  “Seriously?” I said.  “What are they going to do?”

  “You never know,” she said.  “You never know.  THOSE ARE CONVICTS.”

  “Not necessarily,” I said.  “There’s a lot of folks in jail awaiting trial, not convicted of anything.  They just don’t have the money to bond themselves out.  They’re everyday folks who want the whole problem to be over with.”

  “There are people in jail who’ve killed people,” she said.

  “And I daresay they’re not out on work details,” I said.

  “Inmates have killed people,” she went on.

  “Free people have killed people,” I said.  “You really ought to consider walking in other people’s shoes before you’re so quick to judge.”

  My co-worker didn’t say much to me for the next few days until she got over herself.

  I was exposed to jailbreaks close-up when I lived on the east side of Amarillo back in the early 90’s. 

  I lived in the subdivision that, once upon a time, was base housing for Amarillo Air Force Base.  The base closed in 1968.  Someone had the foresight to invest in the duplexes and…poof…cheap housing.

  Across the field, just a rifle shot from the housing, was the Potter County Jail.

  Folks in the housing area had dogs.  I did too, but I had mine because they were longtime companions.  While I’m sure lots of other folks had dogs for the same reason, more than one neighbor at one time or another told me they had a dog specifically to have some barking in case inmates escaped from the county jail.

  And escape they did.

  A number of them got out by basically using their bare hands to pull apart the jail’s cinderblock walls, climbing through the hole and getting the hell out of the area.

  There must’ve been four jailbreaks from that place in the time I lived there and every time the escapees had no intention of heading for the nearby houses.

  There’d be a small story in the local newspaper some time later saying the escapee had been picked up in a distant Texas town, Alabama or some other distant place.

  Now here at the county seat there was an inmate whose escape I found quite memorable. 

  The story begins with an everyday citizen of the county seat sitting in his house, in his living room, in his easy chair on a Wednesday morning watching “Gunsmoke” on his TV.

  His front door flies open and a guy in an orange jump suit runs through his living room, on through the kitchen then out the back door.

  Everyday citizen gets up from his easy chair to go stand at the doorway to the kitchen and look out the back door just in time to see the orange jumpsuit dude clamber over the backyard fence.

  Then everyday citizen is startled by another big noise from the front door.

  Two uniformed guys are charging through the house.

  “Sorry for barging in, sir,” said one uniform in motion, “In pursuit of an escaped inmate.”

  No sooner had uniform finished talking than he and his compadre were out the back door and over the back fence.

  I understand the inmate was caught a couple of hours later.

  I don’t know exactly how he got away.  I think he just made a mad dash from his handlers.

  Now there was quite a stir when eight inmates broke out of the county lockup back in the summer of 2008. 

  As the news guy for a local radio station I had seen the press release from the county sheriff when I started working on my news before the morning show.  I wondered if I should ride my bicycle to work that morning like I always did.

  I decided I would and I did.  Like my momma told me one time, “If your number’s up, it’s up.”

  As I rode through the mostly empty streets of town I saw a friend taking a morning walk.

  “Hey Red*,” I called out as I rode up to him in the pre-dawn light.

  “Hey Grant,” he said.

  “Hey, I know you’re an ex-Marine and all,” I said, “But still, I’d be remiss if I didn’t tell you that 8 guys broke out of the county jail last night.”

  Red stood there for a few moments and looked this way and that.

  “Well,” he said smiling, “I think I’ll head on home.”

  Seven of the escapees were caught within 2 months of the jailbreak.  The eighth would be on the lam for about 4 years before he was caught in Mexico.

  There used to be trees outside the county lockup.

  That’s the thing I remember the most about that incident.  Afterwards county crews cut down the trees growing next to the building…the escapees had used them to shimmy down from the roof.

  The lack of trees just added to the sterile look of the place.  But who cares about the aesthetics of a jail?

  I think about folks who break out of jail.

  Living in the moment.

  Not thinking of the consequences.

  Not thinking that when they get picked up, and they eventually are, there’ll be even more trouble.

  I reckon they're possessed of an inability to see the big picture.

  But that’s probably what got a lot of folks in jail in trouble in the first place.

-30-

*Not his real name.

Workin' at the Call Center Blues

    A "self-portrait" doodle I saved in my stuff...from 28 years ago 

when I was working at the call center...

  These days when I have to call customer service for a problem, you know, the credit card…the power company…whatever call center I have to call I usually begin the conversation by saying:  “Now if my tone gets a little angry or whatever it’s not directed at you.  I am frustrated with your corporate masters.  I’m sure you do a fine job, you should actually get paid double what they’re paying you, you should only have to work 30 hours a week and get paid holidays, full paid medical and a free bar in the break room for all the stuff you have to put up with all day…”

  I say this because I have walked in the shoes of those who work at call centers.

  It was one of those jobs that I worked once upon a time and I thought I could make a go of it when The Lady of the House and I moved to Pensacola in 2015.

  I had tried selling cars and got fired after 6 weeks….I didn’t sell enough cars…six wasn’t enough for ‘em.  I worked shuttling cars and pickups to and from the local auto auction and dealerships but that was basically just 20 hours a week at minimum wage.  I turned down a gig with a funeral home, being “on call” to go pick up bodies at any time of day and getting 10 dollars an hour…it was the “on call” part I didn’t like.

  So the local big call center was looking to bring people on board to earn “big coin”…for Pensacola:  $11.00 an hour.

  By the way, sidebar comment:  If you want to make a small fortune in Pensacola…go there with a large one.

  Anyway, back to the job at the call center…

  The deal was they put you through 6 weeks paid training and then you were on your own.

  The place was like a giant mutation of high school.

  During breaks many an employee would band together in their own little cliques and say snarky things about other people and cliques.  If that doesn’t bring back memories of high school I don’t know what will.

  I’d say on average the cops were called to the place about twice a week over hair-pullin’, nail-scratchin’, “cat fights” between female employees…I reckon because probably 80% of the call center operators were women.

  In week three they let us trainees take “real” calls instead of role-playing with each other.  I should say that by week three we were down to about 30 trainees.  We had started out with 60.  Some folks discovered that call center work was not for them.

  I had trouble navigating through all the stuff of this one customer’s account and the computers they had us on weren’t the fastest.

  “I’m sorry,” I said to Ms. Customer, “I’m new here and I’m having a bit of trouble with the system.”

  Almost as soon as I said that The Trainer comes to me and whispers, “When you’re through with that call put your system on hold.”  That meant I was to take no more calls.

  It turns out she had told that to everyone in the room.

  There was to be a “teachable moment” for the class…

  …about what I had just said to Ms. Customer.

  “Now class, Mr. McGee just told a customer that he is new here and he was having trouble navigating the system,” Ms. Trainer had just dished out that info in a calm, measured voice.  But then she turned a bit sterner and louder, “WE NEVER TELL THE CUSTOMER THAT WE ARE NEW OR PERSONALLY HAVING TROUBLE WITH THE SYSTEM.”

  Ms. Trainer looked around the room.

  “Our customers call here expecting to get top notch service.  Admitting that you are personally having trouble with the system does not convey the confidence we wish to portray to our customers.”

  “If you are having trouble it is acceptable to say, ‘I apologize for the delay, our IT crew is upgrading the system and it’s causing a slowdown.”

  I raised my hand.

  “Yes, Mr. McGee,” said Ms. Trainer.

  “So,” I said, “It’s okay to lie, to be dishonest in order to preserve appearances, for the sake of good marketing.”

  My statement was met by an icy stare and silence from the instructor and a few titters from some class members.

  Halfway into the next week I could sense that a career at the call center was not to be mine:  I had trouble dealing with the questions and the various products folks were calling about.  During lunch I called The Lady of the House and told her about my troubles in navigating the waters of call centerdom.

  “Just come on home,” said The Lady of the House.  “Come on home, have lunch and go right out to the auto auction and get that job back.”

  I thought I’d do alright at the call center, after all I hadn’t done half bad when I worked at one in Albuquerque in 1990.

  I was working for a temp agency and had done things like assemble giant-ass shelves for a warehouse, help move a department store from one mall to another and moving along the floor of a nursing home on my hands and knees wiping dried loogies and flipped boogers off the walls.

  It was that last gig that gave me the nerve to approach my handlers at the temp agency about getting a better gig.

  “Guys,” I said one day with a smile, “Don’t you have an office gig you can get me into?  I can type.  I can wear a tie.”

  The answer to my question was being assigned to the credit card division of Megabank’s** offices in Albuquerque.

  For eight hours a day I was placed in front of a pre-Windows green screen computer with telephone headphones I bought with my own coin at Radio Shack and took calls randomly thrown at me from various parts of the country.

  My job was to connect with Megabank credit card customers who were just over 30 days past due in a payment on their account.  The department I was in was called “Bucket 1.”  The “buckets” ranged from 1 to 6, that means from 1 month to 6 months past due.  The higher the number the more hard-assed the call center operators.  After Bucket 6 it was off to hard-core collections peeps.

  One day I was passing by the Bucket 6 room and heard one of the operators having a chat with a customer…

  “Yes ma’am,” said the voice from one of the cubicles, “I understand your husband died and your personal finances are in disarray.  Yes ma’am, I understand you are two months behind in your house payments….”

  Then the call center fellow raised his voice and added some sharpness, “BUT THE FACT OF THE MATTER IS MRS. SMITH YOU USED YOUR MEGABANK CREDIT CARD TO MAKE PURCHASES AND YOU OWE US MONEY.  NOW WHEN CAN WE EXPECT YOUR CHECK FOR 275 DOLLARS?”

This was long before computers could measure how well a call center operator was doing.  Your success was based on how many “PTPs” you could get per hour…PTP standing for “promise to pay.”

  Get above 15 PTPs on average and you were doing okay.  Get an average of below 15 PTPs per hour 3 months in a row and you were out of work.

  So there was no time to listen to sob stories, no time to chat about the weather in wherever the cardholder might be…we were on the phone to get the cardholder to say, “Yes, I’ll send that payment to you right away.”

  It was a pain in the ass job, working to steer a conversation about someone’s personal finances.

  But I learned a few things about people.

  I learned that most folks in the Rocky Mountain states, more specifically the Mountain Time Zone states, were generally easy going and polite….at least in 1990.

  On the other hand, it seemed like every person I called in California thought they were lawyers.  Hell, maybe they WERE lawyers.  “I KNOW MY RIGHTS,” were words that eventually came from many a California cardholder.

  Texans didn’t seem to care.  I can’t remember the exact wording but it seems back in 1990 there was really no way to recoup the company’s money if someone in Texas didn’t have a mind to pay.  The cardholder’s credit would be shot to hell but Megabank wasn’t getting its money.

  Oh, it was from a Texan that I learned a new way to be an asshole.

  “Hello,” I started the call one work day morning, “May I speak with Mr. Wickerbill**please?”

  “This is Mr. Wickerbill,” came the reply over the phone from some town in the Dallas area.

  “Mr. Wickerbill, my name is Grant.  I’m with Megabank.  I’m calling to remind you you are 30 days late with your monthly payment.  We’re calling to ask when may we expect your payment.”

  There was silence on the line.

  “Mr. Wickerbill?  Are you still there?”

  “Yes I am,” said Mr. Wickerbill, “What’s your name again please?”

  “Grant.”

  And with that answer Mr. Wickerbill’s demeanor changed from that of just a guy on the phone to a Grade-A, US Prime angry-sounding asshole.

  “You listen to me, Grant.  Are you listening to me Grant?  Let me tell you something, Grant.  Grant, don’t you or anyone else from Megabank EVER call me at my place of employment, do you hear me Grant?  Grant, I’m talking to you.  ANSWER ME, GRANT.”

  “I’m listening, Mr. Wickerbill.”

  “I will pay this bill when I’m God-damned good and ready, DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME GRANT?  But NO ONE from Megabank better ever call me where I work, ARE YOU TAKING NOTES GRANT?  GOOD BYE, GRANT.”

  And he hung up.

  I sat there for a minute then took a break to get my blood pressure down.

  The dude had just verbally beat the hell out of me with my own name.  It was different.  It was unique.  It was a weird feeling.  I wondered where the hell he learned that.

  It was a little thing I filed away for future use. 

  There were some lighter moments too, like the time I called Detroit early one morning.

  “Hah-low?” it was a kid answering the phone.

  “Hi there,” I said in my cheery Megabank voice, “May I speak with Mrs. Anderson**?

  “Jus’ a min,” said the kid.

  There was a loud clattering as the phone obviously fell on the floor.  I could hear kid footsteps running through the house.

  And then the kid’s voice.

  “MAMA,” yelled the kid, “THERE’S A WHITE MAN ON THE PHONE.”

  I leaned back in my chair and laughed a bit.

  As time went on with my big bill collector’s job with Megabank I saw no future in it.  My PTP average was 13 per hour for two months in a row.  They always posted the standings on the office bulletin board at the end of every week, like finals grades in college.

  And there were meetings.  Meetings for meetings sake.  It was a culture I was unfamiliar with.  Meeting to meet.  I hate meetings.  They make me sleepy.  It’s why I won’t go into politics.  I’d probably fall asleep during a key meeting and then reporters would be all over my ass, front page news, “MCGEE SLEEPS THROUGH KEY MEETING.”

  I went back into radio.

  While it wasn’t wiping dried loogies and boogers off the walls of nursing homes, call center work wasn’t my cup of tea.

  As a matter of fact, now I wonder why the hell I decided to go after the call center job in Pensacola in the first place.

  Like the late, great writer Raymond Carver once wrote:  “Who knows why we do what we do.”

-30-

** Fictitious name.

Tales of the Southwest: The Art Truck

The actual factual Art Truck at a beach campground on The Gulf of California 

at Puerto Peñasco, Sonora, Mexico...June 1998.

  My buddy Ken* drove from Roswell, New Mexico to visit me out west in Bisbee, Arizona about 20 years ago.

  We spent an evening hanging out at a couple of the bars in the town’s famed “Brewery Gulch” before calling it a night.

  We were headed back to the hacienda when we came to a stop sign.

  Here came a car from the left.

  It had the right of way so it sailed through the intersection right in front of my headlights.

  It was one of Bisbee’s art cars.

  This particular one was a Nissan station wagon with all kinds of dolls glued to the car’s body and top:  Cabbage Patch kids, Kewpie dolls, run of the mill dolls, Barbies & Kens, Betsy Wetsy, GI Joe….all glued to the car.

  “What the hell was that?” Ken practically yelled as he watched the tail lights fade off into the distance.

  “Art car,” I said.  “Town’s full of ‘em.”

  “This is a weird damn place you live in,” Ken said.

  Well that’s why I moved to Bisbee from Phoenix.

  I had gotten tired of the traffic, the intense heat and the angry vibe in general in “The Valley of the Sun,” that’s what they call the Phoenix area.

  I really wanted to move back to Roswell but I had heard there was a hippie utopia about 200 miles to the southeast of Phoenix, just a rifle shot from the Mexican border:  Bisbee.

  I was still at that stage in my life where I thought SURELY there was a place where everyone lived in happiness, peace, music, art and harmony.

  And while Bisbee had the art and Bisbee had a different vibe going on, it still wasn’t utopia.

  But that’s another story.

  I don’t know, maybe there were one or two dozen “art cars” that called Bisbee home.

  Unlike my buddy Ken, I wasn’t shocked by the first art car I saw.

  It was covered in some kind of spongy material and shaped to look like a flying eye.

  I thought it was cool.

  I wanted to make my own art car.

  The thought that came right to mind was to take a bunch of CDs (compact discs) and silicone glue them to the exterior of my little red Subaru.  The radio station where I worked got in all of these excess CDs….music we didn’t play….non-hits, Mexican music that wasn’t our format.  We had boxes and boxes of ‘em just waiting to be glued to my car, label side down, shiny side up.

  I thought it was a good idea.

  But like a lot of stuff I think of in life I didn’t think the idea through.

  “I bet the first time an Arizona State Trooper sees it they’ll give you a ticket,” said a Bisbee pal.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “All those shiny compact discs glinting in the sun?  They’ll say you’re a road hazard.  And will the CDs stand up to the heat?  Will they turn into little warped circles all over your car?”

  So I nixed the CD “art car.”

  But I had a truck.

  My truck was a good ol’ dependable 1983 Ford F-150 pickemup truck.

  I wanted to do SOMETHING “cool” with it but nothing crossed my mind.

  I’m really not a decorating kind of guy.

  For instance, my interior decorating skills were still stuck in college.  Give me a bean bag chair, some cinder blocks and boards for shelving and some random posters to slap on my living room walls and I’m good.  Artistic decorating visionary I am not.

  Then then art came to my Ford F-150.

  It was time for one of the many festivals held in the hippie town of Bisbee.  The town dance teacher approached me with an idea.

  “What if during the Spring Festival you park your pickup truck at the dance school’s booth and people just paint what they want on the truck?” she proposed.  “I have the paint.”

  “I love it!” I said.  “I dig the randomness, the spontaneity!”

  And so one Saturday in April during The Bisbee Spring Festival my truck sat parked with buckets of paint nearby along with brushes and festivalgoers…mostly kids, some adults…randomly painted upon it.

  When I came back to pick it up in the evening it was glorious…yellow streaks, fuchsia strokes, white wavy lines, sky blue stars, an orange sun and a topless mermaid.

  “I didn’t know if you could handle the topless mermaid,” said the dance teacher.

  “Well…I….I don’t know what they might say at my work,” I said.  I worked 30 miles away at a radio station in Sierra Vista, an Army town.  I could just see my boss calling into question the wisdom of driving around the conservative burg with a topless mermaid…a BUSTY topless mermaid…painted on my truck.

  “Hang on,” she said.

  Dance teacher reached into a box and produced some silicon glue and some quarter-sized spangles.  One by one she pasted the spangles over the mermaid’s boobs and….VOILA!  The mermaid now had a spangly bra…or bikini top…or whatever.

  From time to time my pickemup truck got driven around town.  In Bisbee nobody gave the wildly painted F-150 a second glance.  In Sierra Vista or Tombstone, well, folks just knew that I must’ve come down the mountain from Bisbee.

  Like that time I was headed into work in my pickemup truck.  My speedometer was broken so I just stayed with the flow of traffic….it had worked for me so far.

  Except for this one time.

  I was the last in a line of about 5 cars rolling toward Sierra Vista.  It didn’t SEEM like we were speeding.  Then an Arizona State Trooper passed going the other direction.  I just checked in my rearview and saw the trooper slam on the brakes and make a u-turn.

  “Oh hell,” I thought to myself, “My day for revenue enhancement.”

  Sure enough the trooper was soon on my ass with lights a-flashin’.

  I pulled over, turned off the truck, put the keys on the dash, rolled the window down and sat awaiting my fate.

  “Good day, sir,” said the lady trooper.  “Do you know why I stopped you?”

  “No ma’am,” I said.  “I honestly don’t know.”

  “You were doing 65 in a 55 zone,” she said.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, “I was just going with the flow of traffic.”

  I wasn’t going to admit to having a broken speedometer, that probably would’ve gotten me in even more trouble.

  “You’re from Bisbee, aren’t you,” she said.

  “Yes ma’am.”

  She cast her eyes on my truck body, looked from front to back then looked at me.

  “I could tell,” she smiled.

  Ms. Trooper took my license and registration, went back to her car, did whatever they do back there then came back, handing my stuff back to me.

  “I’m just giving you a warning, slow it down,” said the trooper.  Then she smiled, “And good luck selling this thing when the time comes.”

  Then the time came to go to Roswell to visit my friends.

  It was summertime so my Subaru wouldn’t be making the trip…it had no air conditioning.  The “art truck” AC worked.

  I would be driving my “art truck” to southeast New Mexico.  I would be amongst ranchers, a few oilfield workers and such.  No longer would I be amongst the artistic types of Bisbee.

  I was more concerned about the lousy gas mileage I’d get driving a full-sized pickemup truck than I was about the reaction I’d get in Roswell traffic.

  As it turns out there wasn’t much of a reaction at all.

  Some old guy who looked like he was made up of tanned leather and spring steel turned by me at an intersection and said loud enough for me to hear:  “Damn waste of a perfectly good truck.”

  Another guy spoke when he pulled up beside me at a traffic light on Main Street Roswell:  “Why’d you cover up the mermaid’s boobs?  That’s just sad.”

  A year or so later the time came to leave Arizona and return to New Mexico.

  And the art truck?

  I gave it to the dance teacher.

  After all, the truck really belonged in the little hippie burg just a rifle shot from the Mexican border.

-30-

*Name changed

TALES OF THE SOUTHWEST: A Country Station Not Worth Its Salt

  It was 25 years ago today that “The Best Friend a Song Ever Had,” Mr. Conway Twitty, legendary Country singer, died of an abdominal aortic aneurysm.   

  I liked ol’ Conway, his music was pure Country soul.  Listen to “Hello Darlin’” and hear the yearning.  Listen to “Linda on My Mind” and hear the human condition.  Listen to Conway’s cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Proud Mary” and hear pure Country soul.

  I was working at a Country station in Texas at the time.  This was not your standard issue “Country” station, nosireebob, unh-unh, nope…this was the “Hot Country” format full of uptempo dance numbers targeted for a younger crowd.

  A week into the gig I realized I had made a horrible mistake moving from an easygoing Country AM station in Roswell, New Mexico to this FM powerhouse in Texas. 

  The dude I interviewed with seemed friendly enough when he took me to breakfast.  When I got the gig I don’t know what happened to the guy who interviewed me but he had been replaced by an asshole who looked just like him.

  There would be no spontaneity, there would be no “organic-ness,” basically nothing would be unscripted. 

  This was NOT my style of radio.

  So when I heard Conway had died I shouldn’t have been surprised when I switched over to the station and didn’t hear any Conway being played.

  I called the station.

  “Dude, it’s Grant,” I said.  “Conway’s died.  Why aren’t you playing any Conway in tribute.”

  This was the way…BACK THEN…of any good Country station worth its salt.  If an icon died you played his or her music in tribute, like, RIGHT AWAY.

  “Kevin* said not to,” said my co-worker. “He said if I did he’d fire me."  

  That was the General Manager’s answer to everything…cross him in the slightest bit he’d fire you.  A radio Nazi.  He never fired anyone, I don’t think he had the guts.

  "He said there'd have to be a meeting," my co-worker continued, "And if we do it will have to be his most recent hits, no old shit.”

  As it turned out the station didn't play any Conway in tribute.

  The Hot Country place was shut down by the IRS a couple of years later.  The building is now a Somali grocery.

  I gracefully left that radio gig a couple of months after Conway died…loaded up a borrowed school bus that had barely any brakes and moved to Phoenix. 

  Never had I ever been so glad to get the hell out of a town.

  That was until I moved away from Pensacola, Florida last year.

  But that’s another story.

-30-

*not the guy's real name